Psychological Disorders: Complicated Grief

Have you ever lost someone close to you? Unfortunately loss and grief are universally a part of life. Everyone will someday experience the death of a loved one and the pain that it brings. Even though every individual grieves in their own way, overtime they should be able to adjust to the loss and their grieving will subside. But, there are some people whose grief will never let up and actually gets worse as time goes on. They suffer from a psychological disorder commonly known as Complicated Greif. This condition is a debilitating disorder and is extremely painful to live with. Fortunately, even though Complicated Grief is a fairly new diagnosis and there is still much to be learned about it, several successful ways have been found …show more content…
The grief that comes with such a loss is very challenging, but even though the sadness may never truly go away, most people can move on and live a life that has purpose and meaning again. That is not the case for someone suffering from Complicated Grief (Fromson, 2013). Complicated grief is defined by Nam in his paper as, “a condition in which emotional reactions after the death of a loved one are prolonged and are accompanied by complicating thoughts, behaviors, and dysfunctional emotional regulation” (2016). “Complicated Grief is characterized by reactive distress to the death (e.g., disbelief or bitterness) and disruption is social relationships or identity” (Ghesquiere, A.R., 2015). For someone suffering from this psychological disorder, there is no possibility of having a life with happiness again (Fromson, 2013). They cannot integrate the feelings they are experiencing into daily life and the grief is always front and foremost. Complicated Grief inhibits them from living a normally again after experiencing the traumatic loss. Unlike normal grief were symptoms gradually start to fade over time, with Complicated Grief the grief symptoms linger and can even get worse (Shear, …show more content…
The reason it is hard to make this desertion is because every individual grieves so differently. Even with normal grief, the length of time of intense morning immediately after a death known as acute grief varies from person to person (Fromson, 2013). During her interview, Dr. Simon refers to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition or DSM-5 has selected twelve months as being the length of time needed for an individual to show symptoms to be officially diagnosed with Complicated Grief (2014). This is not the only issue that has not been collectively agreed upon about Complicated