Tag Archives: grief

Is Mourning Madness? The wrongheaded movement to classify grief as a mental disorder

Is grief a disease? That is one of the crucial questions psychologists are asking as the American Psychiatric Association revamps its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), used by millions of mental health professionals to diagnose patients, for a fifth edition due out in 2013.

A group of psychiatrists have spearheaded a movement to include ongoing grief as a disorder, to be labeled “complicated” or “prolonged grief.” Others have proposed, separately, that a mourner can be labeled clinically depressed only two weeks after the loss of a loved one. The problem with both potential changes is that more people’s grief will be diagnosed as abnormal or extreme, in a culture that already leads mourners to feel they need to just “get over it” and “heal.”

Grief is not an illness- Medicalising normal human emotion is not only dangerously simplistic, but flawed.

Should grief be classified as a mental illness? Editors from The Lancet, a highly regarded medical journal, argue no.

The recently published editorial warned against prescribing antidepressants to treat grief, arguing that “medicalising” a normal human emotion is “not only dangerously simplistic, but also flawed”.

The warning has been prompted by the release of the draft version of the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). In this upcoming edition of the ‘psychiatrist’s bible’ there is no exclusion for bereavement in the diagnosis of a major depressive disorder.

This means that “feelings of deep sadness, loss, sleeplessness, crying, inability to concentrate, tiredness, and no appetite, which continue for more than 2 weeks after the death of a loved one, could be diagnosed as depression, rather than as a normal grief reaction.”

American Psychiatric Association’s Push to Broaden Definitions of Mental Disorders Sparks Revolt

A panel appointed by the American Psychiatric Association is proposing changes to the industry’s guide for mental illnesses, which determines how patients are diagnosed and treated, and whether insurers pay for care. The new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is scheduled to be published next year.

“Everyday disappointments, sufferings and eccentricities are being redefined as psychiatric disorders, and that could lead to medication treatment,” said Frances, a professor emeritus at Duke University who lives in San Diego, California. “This is expanding the boundaries of psychiatry.”

Psychiatry bible ‘turns sorrow into sickness’

IT’S been branded a “dangerous public experiment” that could turn normal human experiences into an epidemic of mental illness with healthy people being drugged unnecessarily.

In radical changes to the way mental health conditions are diagnosed, what was once considered a child’s temper tantrum could be labelled ”disruptive mood dysregulation disorder”. If a widow grieves for more than a fortnight she might be diagnosed with ”major depressive disorder”. If a mother in a custody battle tries to turn a child against the father, it might create ”parental alienation disorder”.

These are among new conditions proposed for the fifth edition of the psychiatrist’s bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), due to be finalised next year.

Psychopharmaceutical industry seeks world of dispassionate sheeple

People who obediently follow the herd, never markedly sad, angry or excited; children who play quietly and never annoy or talk out of turn – this is the object of the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries. And when anyone steps out of line, the answer is simple: stamp them “abnormal” and give them a pill.

Human sorrow could soon be more easily diagnosed and medicated as a mental disorder. Psychiatrists creating the next edition of the psychiatric bible – the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-5, due out in 2013) – are recommending to eliminate the time clause for major depressive disorder. So instead of grieving for two months to qualify, if you mourn the loss of a loved one for only two weeks doctors could label you mentally ill and prescribe a drug.