Grief

Abstract

Grief is not a mental disorder, it is a painful and unexpected process in response to the death of a family member or a loved one (bereavement), or a significant loss. Despite the fact that grief is not a mental disorder, consultations about grief are fairly frequent in clinical practice, which is why clinicians must be trained for these situations. Every consultation about grief must be taken into account and evaluated carefully in order to define the kind of therapy to be followed and whether or not a consultant psychiatrist should intervene. It is important to bear in mind that not every process of grief follows a normal development and reaches a satisfactory solution, and this is where health care professionals must be qualified to recognise when grief is becoming a pathological disease; they must be more alert to these cases and intervene in an opportune and appropriate way. It is also important to stress that grief is not a synonym for depression, but many grief-stricken people may enter a depressive state, and they therefore require early treatment in order to avoid complications that might arise from the unsuitable treatment of a depressive episode, such as suicide for example. Finally, the relationship between grief and psychopathological disorder has been demonstrated. It is also known that grief that is insufficiently elaborated, or which follows an abnormal development, may give rise to a psychopathological disorder, generally a major depressive episode, just as an established mental disorder may hinder the elaboration of a process of working through grief.