The DSM-5 Turned Grief Into a Disorder—For Profit

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association made a quiet but brutal change: it removed the bereavement exclusion from the DSM-5. This means that if you lose a loved one and show signs of depression—trouble sleeping, lack of appetite, deep sadness—for just two weeks, you can now be diagnosed with major depressive disorder (APA, 2013).

I call bullsh*t! This wasn’t about compassion. It was about Big Pharma, prescriptions, and profit.

For decades, psychiatry acknowledged that grief is not a mental illness. The bereavement exclusion protected people dealing with loss from being pathologized. But now? Pharmaceutical companies have a bigger market. Normal, healthy grief is medicalized so it can be treated with antidepressants.

Even top psychiatrists protested. Dr. Allen Frances, who chaired the DSM-IV task force, called the DSM-5’s move “medicalizing normality” and warned it would “turn grief into a mental disorder” (Frances, 2013). Critics argued that this opens the door to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, especially when drug companies stand to gain.

Grief is painful, but it’s not pathological. You’re supposed to hurt when someone dies. And NO time limit is normal or abnormal. Labeling it a disorder after two weeks isn’t care—it’s a cash grab.

References:

• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.).

• Frances, A. (2013). Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. HarperCollins.