I think this is a slippery slope. I do think grief can probably trigger a clinical depression in someone who is already predisposed to that, but I would hate to think that grief needs to be eradicated with medication so that we don't feel it. Grief is important to go through as a process and it seems to me that what grieving people need most is connection with and support of others. I would imagine if any treatment is given, therapy would be a first choice, not medication, as a way to work through it. Complicated grief is something different entirely and I believe consists of years and layers of unresolved grief and the inability to mourn multiple kinds of losses. I think it's more related to trauma; unresolved trauma can erupt as depression, sometimes years down the road. There should certainly be a distinction made between them.
Hi Judy,
Well, your point about therapy over drug treatments is exactly the same point that some of the panel members are making. In removing the 'bereavement exclusion' from the depression diagnosis they effectively extend the parameters for depression. The argument is that by doing this they can suggest 'therapy' to those who it is felt would benefit from it earlier.
There are at least two problems that I can see. The first is that a great number of grieving and possibly deserving people won't be paying a visit to their doctor. The second, and for me most concerning, is how treatments will be prescribed. There are already a lack of qualified 'talk therapists', so the temptation will always be to prescribe antidepressants.
It's possibly a perverse way of thinking, but the one 'benefit' we might get out of this is we all end up being labeled as having a mental illness. That's one way to normalise I guess!
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I think that there are dangers here because mental illness, apart from being a biological disorder, is also, in part, a construction of the Western World. Yes grief can be a period fo intense depression but if we start to diagnose grief and related symptoms as mental illness we will go down the medication road. Is this really going to help people who experience grief or possibly make them worse in the long run? This is the question.
Good questions, Alfredo. The worrying aspect of this is the way normal human behavior and emotions are in danger of becoming medicalised. It may be driven by the best of intentions but it really has become a very divisive issue. I personally hope the panel step back from this.