Prolonged grief disorder: a new diagnostic entity in DSM-5TR

Abstract

Grief is a normal response following the death of a beloved one. Prolonged grief disorder is defined when grief is intense and has persisted for an atypically long period of time; more than 6 months (ICD-11) or more than 12 months (DSM- 5TR). This article discusses the conceptual distance between this new disorder and that of classical descriptions, as considered in a distinct Section of the DSM-5. These differences suggest disagreements among different working groups for disorders. Freud's perspective on mourning and melancholia (mayor depression disorder) pertains also to a classical scope. The grief work is exemplified with an autobiographical case, that illustrates how borders between normal and pathological grief are blurred. Although a new disorder might assist an ever longer-lived population that becomes widow, the risk is the medicalization of grief.