Prolonged Grief Disorder and the DSM: A History

Abstract

In the early 1990s, a research group that included Holly Prigerson and Charles Reynolds established that disordered grief overlaps with depression and anxiety but is not the same. They also developed a research inventory for studying disordered grief. Subsequently, Prigerson focused on measuring disordered grief using advanced psychometric techniques. Because treatment for grief-related depression reduced symptoms of depression but not grief, Katherine Shear was recruited to develop a more effective therapy. Prigerson came to conceptualize disordered grief as prolonged grief that is associated with negative outcomes. Shear came to conceptualize disordered grief as intense grief that is complicated by features that interfere with adaption to the loss. In 2013 a hybrid disorder composed of criteria from both groups was placed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) appendix. Under the leadership of the DSM Steering Committee, a summit meeting in 2019 helped break an impasse, and a revised prolonged grief disorder became an official DSM diagnosis.