Is Grief a Disorder?

As I was perusing the NYTimes this morning, my attention was caught by a headline stating that grief may become a psychiatric disorder.  I'm not quite sure that I can stomach the fact that grief, the feeling we most often associate when we lose a loved one, might become a disorder that we can be treated for.   The issue is coming up now because the psychiatric community, namely the American Psychiatric Association, is working on the fifth edition of its "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders".  Grief has become one of many points of contention as the APA receives input from psychiatrists around the globe.  Some support its inclusion as a disorder, some are against it.  Supporters of its inclusion state that grief often times leads to depression and as such, many people who experience debilitating grief are going untreated.  I understand where they are coming from.  I can see how grief can lead to depression.  Its not easy to lose a loved one and often times it can lead us to question our own tenuous existence, question the relevance of life, and spiral dramatically downhill as life seems more and more futile.  However, isn't grief a normal human state?  Are we not supposed to mourn a loved one who passes away?  The period of grief that people go through, or bereavement, is different for everyone.  Some people take longer to get over the loss of a loved one while others are capable of moving past more quickly.  If you look at the numbers, between 8 and 10 million people lose a loved one each year, and most experience a period of grief lasting from 2-4 weeks on average.  Does that mean then that 8-10 million more people each year could get "treatment" for grief?

I am not saying here that some people don't need help to overcome the loss of a loved one.  I am sure that there are many people who benefit from counseling and for whom it is necessary if they are to move past their grief and get back to living their life.  However, my issue mainly arises from the fact that once it becomes a specific "disorder", whether or not is associated with depression, it opens it up to treatment by medication.  Many psychiatrists are known for treating disorders with medications.  For almost every mental disorder there is, there are a slew of medications that can be prescribed so people can deal with these disorders.  That means that any of the 8-10 million people who lose a loved one each year could potentially be prescribed a medication to help them deal with their grief, or perhaps a more apt statement would be so that they don't have to deal with grief.  Grief to me is part of who we are.  If we lose a loved one and don't experience some sort of grief, then we are not really in touch with our emotions and that perhaps is a bigger sign of a problem.  Everyone needs to grieve on some level.  It is the mind's way of dealing with a loss and as such, if we deprive people of grief through treatment, we are denying the mind its main tool of coping.  I can see the argument now; "But what if the mind is not capable of dealing with loss through grief?"  Does that then necessitate medication to mask the grief, or is counseling a better option in that it helps people see the grief for what it is and deal with it personally. 

I guess my biggest issue with this whole debate is that once grief gets listed as a disorder, "treatment" will most likely be medication.  Medication does nothing to cure a person, it merely disguises the symptoms of a given disorder and "returns" a person to normalcy (until they go off the medication).  Medication does nothing to help the person deal with the grief and sort through it.  As I said before, I do believe that grief can lead to debilitating depression if people are incapable of dealing with it, however medication is not the answer.  I believe that more emphasis should be placed on counseling to get through the grief.  I have dealt with grief before and it is not always easy to overcome, but it faded in time as I grew accustomed to living without a given person.  I was lucky enough to never sink into depression when dealing with grief, but I can see how it can happen.  Does that mean that if the possibility is there we should medicate it?  I don't think so.  All in all, grief can be a touchy issue.  Some people see it more as a condition or disorder while others see it as a fact of life, a process that people go through when they lose someone close to them.   To me, a disorder is something that is more of a life-long ailment that needs to be dealt with perpetually whereas grief is a process that occurs after a loss and usually goes away over time.  I hope that they don't classify it as a disorder because the last thing we need in this country is more people getting medicated.  Lets learn how to deal with life rather than how to medicate life.