In March 2022, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced a revision to its widely influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The revised manual, known as DSM-5-TR, included a new diagnostic category: prolonged grief disorder (PGD). The announcement ignited a firestorm of controversy.
“Pathologising grief is an insult to the dignity of loving relationships—it proclaims grievers as mentally ill and will too often result in the careless prescription of antidepressants or other drugs to treat enduring symptoms, without consideration of the context.” So wrote the authors of a short and scathing article in the medical journal The Lancet Psychiatry, published not long after the DSM-5-TR was released.
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