Lesson 6 of 6 · When grief has become something else
Prolonged grief, plainly
There is now a recognised condition for grief that has stayed at full intensity and stopped a person living. It is in the international diagnostic systems, which mostly means that services have to take it seriously rather than telling people to move on.
What distinguishes it is not how much it hurts. It is persistence past a defined period combined with intense yearning and real impairment in ordinary function. Those are the criteria that were actually validated, and the depth of an attachment is not one of them.
Two things follow. It is not a judgement on how much you loved this child, and nobody who understands it will present it that way. And it is not the same as still being sad on the anniversary in ten years, which is not a disorder and never was.
Nobody can tell from a page whether this is you. That is what an assessment is for.
What the research says
These are the criteria that became prolonged grief disorder: persistence beyond a defined period together with intense yearning and impaired functioning, rather than the depth of your attachment. It exists so people who are stuck can be helped, not so that grief can be timed.
Sets out the criteria that became prolonged grief disorder in the international diagnostic systems. What separates it from grief is persistence beyond a defined period together with intense yearning and impaired functioning, rather than the depth of the attachment.
Prigerson HG, Horowitz MJ, Jacobs SC, and others (2009). Prolonged grief disorder: psychometric validation of criteria proposed for DSM-V and ICD-11. PLoS Medicine, 6(8), e1000121 doi