If you are fortunate enough to have medical insurance that covers psychiatric illness...

[Page Turner]

...you can now seek to have your treatment for prolonged grief covered by insurance. The initial payment denial will doubtless prolong your grief even further. There is a lesson in this somewhere, but I'm not clever enough to summarize it in a few sentences.

 

The latest edition of the DSM-5, sometimes known as “psychiatry’s bible,” includes a controversial new diagnosis: prolonged grief disorder.

 

Quote

 

The decision marks an end to a long debate within the field of mental health, steering researchers and clinicians to view intense grief as a target for medical treatment, at a moment when many Americans are overwhelmed by loss.

The new diagnosis, prolonged grief disorder, was designed to apply to a narrow slice of the population who are incapacitated, pining and ruminating a year after a loss, and unable to return to previous activities.

Its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders means that clinicians can now bill insurance companies for treating people for the condition.

 

 

It will most likely open a stream of funding for research into treatments — naltrexone, a drug used to help treat addiction, is currently in clinical trials as a form of grief therapy — and set off a competition for approval of medicines by the Food and Drug Administration.

 

 

Drugs are the answer, but what is the question ?

[Page Turner]

“It’s kind of like the bar mitzvah of diagnoses,” said Dr. Kenneth S. Kendler, a professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University who has played an important role in the last three editions of the diagnostic manual.

 

 

“It’s sort of an official blessing in the world,” he said. “If we were on the planetary committee of the American Astronomical Society deciding what is a planet or not — this one’s in, and Pluto we kicked out.”

If the diagnosis comes into common use, it is likely to popularize Dr. Shear’s treatment and also give rise to a range of new ones, including drug treatments and online interventions.

[shootingstar]

I don't know what to say...especially the drug part.. Useful for short-term..hopefully.

Unlike LG and LoneWolf  who are hell-bent on dating,  I still am dealing with outfall of dearie's death. However when the dust settles,  dearie still has a bright candle  in me. Looking back to amazing love of committment and singular focus for one another regardless of where we  were.

[Dirtyhip]

43 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

I don't know what to say...especially the drug part.. Useful for short-term..hopefully.

Unlike LG and LoneWolf  who are hell-bent on dating,  I still am dealing with outfall of dearie's death. However when the dust settles,  dearie still has a bright candle  in me. Looking back to amazing love of committment and singular focus for one another regardless of where we  were.

I am sorry for the continued pain of loss. Stay strong. I admire you.

[shootingstar]

28 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

I am sorry for the continued pain of loss. Stay strong. I admire you.

Thank you DH. I'm not sure if  pain is the  right word. I think of him in many different ways. There's a number of things I have  to settle and it's dragging a long time. So it's making closure  a challenge.  I'm happy to say we were together for 29 yrs. and all the thoughts I have, are good thoughts about a great guy.