Abstract
Mental imagery is a transdiagnostic feature that has been increasingly researched in mental disorders in the past years. This study is the first to investigate mental imagery in individuals suffering from Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD), a new disorder which will be included into the new edition of the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11).Our objective was to find out to what extent patients suffering from PGD differ from healthy, but equally bereaved, controls in terms of mental imagery, and how mental imagery is related to psychopathology. Patients with PGD and matched bereaved healthy controls (n = 54) completed a mental imagery questionnaire specifically designed for the study, and other established measures of psychopathology. Patients suffering from PGD reported mental images more frequently, had less control over them, and described negative images as more vivid than did healthy controls. Also, in reaction to mental images, patients less frequently experienced joy, but more often grief, anger and guilt. Besides these group differences, significant correlations between mental imagery other psychopathological measures could be found. Mental imagery is clearly related to PGD. The underlying mechanisms on whether it is a developing or maintaining factor need to be addressed in future studies. Future research should also investigate in what way mental imagery might be used in therapeutic approaches.
Highlights
The 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11) introduces prolonged grief disorder (PGD) as a new diagnosis in the chapter ‘Disorders Associated with Stress’ [1, 2]
Maciejewksi et al [10] analyzed whether PGD according to the ICD-11 proposal (PGD-ICD), PGD according to Prigerson, complicated grief” (CG) and persistent complex bereavement disorder” (PCBD) represent the same underlying construct
We found that different kinds of psychopathology (PGD measured by the ICG-D and the Prolonged Grief-13 (PG-13), depression measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and general mental distress measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI)) were significantly associated with the frequency of mental images
Summary
The 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11) introduces prolonged grief disorder (PGD) as a new diagnosis in the chapter ‘Disorders Associated with Stress’ [1, 2]. In detail, according to the ICD-11, PGD can be diagnosed following the death of someone with whom an individual had a close relationship, if the individual either experiences intensive longing for the deceased or is persistently preoccupied with the deceased These criteria must be accompanied by intense emotional pain exemplified by 10 symptoms. According to their results the application of the PGD-ICD, PGD or the PCBD sets would each result in 10% of the individuals being diagnosed with PGD/ PCBD, whereas the application of the CG criteria would result in a prevalence rate of 30% in the same sample
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