Virginia Hughes parses two proposed additions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM):
In the less controversial change, the manual would add a new category: Complicated Grief Disorder, also known as traumatic or prolonged grief. … The controversial change focuses on the other end of the time spectrum: it allows medical treatment for depression in the first few weeks after a death. Currently the DSM specifically bars a bereaved person from being diagnosed with full-blown depression until at least two months have elapsed from the start of mourning.
Vaughan Bell scoffs:
This brings to mind psychologist Richard Bentall’s tongue-in-cheek proposal to classify happiness as a mental disorder due to the fact that it is “statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system”. Perhaps we can also look forward to simmering anger, dashed hopes and unrequited love disorders for the DSM-6?
The Dish 