Being Human

Grief Is Not a Mental Illness

How do emotions become mental disorders? Well, it depends how you define “mental disorders.”

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Chuck  Colson
















Further Reading and Information

Grief is not a mental illness that should be treated with pills
Lauren Paxman | Daily Mail | February 17, 2012

Grief Is Not a Disorder
Chuck Colson | Two-Minute Warning | February 14, 2012

Living with grief
Editors | The Lancet | February 18, 2012

A Grief Observed
C. S. Lewis | HarperOne | 2001



Mr. Colson, I really appreciate your discussing this issue.

Since February 2011, I have lost my mother, my brother, and a slew of other relatives. Particularly in regard to the first two, my grieving process has definitely not run its course. I am still hit by profound sadness and also a good deal of anger. I hate that my wonderful mother had to go through ALS, and I cannot comprehend why my brother had to live most of his life with a horrible, crippling disease.

Most of the time, I'm doing pretty well. But there are times when it hurts so much that I wish there were a way to get rid of it. That is exactly why what the APA is doing is so dangerous and irresponsible. You are right, Mr. Colson; this is a necessary process for many reasons, and numbing oneself will only ensure that a person doesn't fully deal with it and learn to handle it in an important and meaningful way. Far from being a mental illness, grieving is how we come through this ordeal with our stability and humanity intact.

The prospect of a pill that would make this pain go away is a tantalizing one, even for someone like me who resists taking anything if it's possible to tough it out. Such a medication would be enormously popular--and enormously unethical. The APA has to be the grownup in this situation and tell people that not everything they want is good for them. The role of psychiatry and medicine should not and cannot be to shield us from all unpleasant aspects of life.
Uno momento, por favor
I just have one modest question: What substantial assurance do we have that the people who formulated the APA criteria are "normal"? Blind trust can be a scary thing.
Mental Illness
Everything except being gay, of course. That USED to be an illness and now you're not even allowed to say it's not normal.