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Complicated grief disorder (CGD)
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The loss of a loved one is always difficult, but some people face prolonged periods of bereavement that lead to complicated grief disorder. If your loved one is struggling with this challenge, it’s important for them to face their loss in order to properly recover. But when treating it in the presence of other underlying mental health challenges, comprehensive treatment is essential in order to prevent these challenges from exacerbating the issue. Through treatment, they can create a new future for themselves free from the burden of grief.
Death and loss are unavoidable parts of the human experience. Although they can cause us a great deal of pain, through these experiences we can also gain a greater appreciation of life. We survive the pain and emerge stronger, and although we are changed, we find ways to harness this change for the best. But sometimes, people find themselves grieving for months without an end in sight—when this happens, that person’s feelings of loss surpass the natural grieving process and become maladaptive, constituting what is considered to be complicated grief disorder (CGD) (also known as complicated bereavement disorder).
When dealing with a loss, everyone copes differently—some of us take longer than others to move on, and some express their feelings in different ways (such as oversleeping, not sleeping enough, or eating more or less than usual). Given this variability, it can be easy to overlook CGD at first, especially since the presence of its symptoms within the first few months after a loss doesn’t necessarily mean that the person has CGD. But if notice your loved one seems to be stuck in the phase of grief for a prolonged period of time—over six months is typically the line—they might require treatment that addresses their grief and the other mental health challenges that it can exacerbate.
In psychiatry, complicated grief disorder (CGD) is a proposed disorder for those who are significantly and functionally impaired by prolonged grief symptoms for at least twelve months after the bereavement. It is distinguished from non-impairing grief and other disorders (such as major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder). This disorder has been reviewed by the DSM-5 work groups, who have decided that it be called Persistent complex bereavement disorder and placed it in the chapter on Conditions for Further Study in the new DSM-5.