Is Grief a Disease? The Medicalization of Grief by the Psy-Disciplines in the Twenty-First Century

This chapter shows how we came to think of grief as something in need of treatment in the modern era. It argues that psychology, psychiatry, and other mental health professions are rooted in an individualistic approach to the problems of human suffering, and, as such, tend to individualize, pathologize, and privatize what used to be considered a normal and accepted human reaction to the death of a loved one. The chapter focuses on a growing counterculture of alternative public grieving rituals, which have taken the form of spontaneous shrines and electronic grieving sites, as evidence of growing dissatisfaction with the privatization and pathologization of grief and the need for public and communal grieving rituals. Pathologizing grief has several important consequences for the ways in which people understand themselves and their grief. The chapter focuses on two modern trends that highlight the need for the public to grieve collectively in the public domain.