The mourning after: Our understanding of grief is changing

Prolonged grief disorder is now classified as a psychiatric condition. What really happens to the body, via the mind, as we mourn? Updates from our inner world.

Sometimes, grief won’t fade. Years after a death, the bereaved person still cannot bear the mention of a name. Cannot care for themselves or their family. Or resume work or a social life. We know people like this. Some of us are, or have been, people like this.

There is a term for such affliction now, where there wasn’t one before.

Prolonged Grief Disorder has been recognised by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental