“Grief is not an illness; it is
more usefully thought of as part of being human and a normal response to the
death of a loved one.” The American Psychiatric Association is debating whether
to classify grief as a mental illness and whether or not it should be able to
be treated with anti-depressants. Arguers agree that in rare cases, bereavement
will develop into prolonged grief or major depression that could eventually
merit medical treatment, but instead of offering medicine, doctors would do
better to offer their time, compassion and empathy to their patient, instead of
these pills.
The DSM-5 proposal, the rebuke to
grief being able to be treated, is asking to eliminate this “grief exclusion”;
meaning that anyone who has experienced a loss to a close loved one cannot be
diagnosed as depressed for a certain period of time. This time frame is still
being debated between a span of 2 weeks to 2 years.
When doctors and psychiatrists find
themselves bored these days, they tend to add more and more mental and physical
illnesses to the books. In the article, it was mentioned, “in 1840 the Census
of the United States included just one category for mental disorder… and 347 in
the last revision.” This shows that doctors just keep adding more and more, and
more medication to people who don’t really need it. Medication is meant to
alter ones body, so that the effects they are feeling are altered, and like
anything, a dependency will be developed; thus, giving someone a disorder that
they didn’t already have because of a dependency on this medicine. The article
mentions this as well, quiet clearly, “Whereas people who are bereaved are
currently given help where necessary, in future they might fund themselves labeled
as having a depressive disorder if their symptoms lasted longer than a certain
period of time.”
Medicating “grief” will only add a
wide range of problems that should never be thought of as mental illnesses.
People will see themselves as “mentally ill” and the USA will grow a stigma of
classifying people what they are not. This will either make neighboring countries
either do the same, or pull away from the US. As well as causing debates within
the US and cultures are determining what a normal length of bereavement is and
how grief in an individual is determined and shaped.
No comments:
Post a Comment