Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffIt's not known what causes complicated grief. As with many mental health disorders, it may involve a complex interaction between your genes, your environment, your body's natural chemical makeup and your personality.
Researchers used to believe that all people moved through five specific stages of grief, in order. Today it's accepted that different people follow different paths through the following tasks of grieving:
- Accepting the reality of your loss
- Allowing yourself to experience the pain of your loss
- Adjusting to a new reality in which the deceased is no longer present
- Engaging in other relationships
You may accomplish these tasks in a different order or on a different timeline than another person grieving a similar loss. These differences are normal. But if you're unable to accomplish one or more of these tasks after a considerable amount of time, you may have complicated grief.
- Bereavement. In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR. 4th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association; 2000. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Lipsitz JD. Interpersonal theory of depression. Gabbard GO, ed. Textbook of Psychotherapeutic Treatments. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2009. http://www.psychiatryonline.com. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Marchand L. End-of-life care. In: Rakel RE. Rakel: Textbook of Family Medicine. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/149504704-3/862284999/1494/128.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2954-0..50085-5_4160. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Block SD. Grief and bereavement. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Kendler KS, et al. Does bereavement-related major depression differ from major depression associated with other stressful life events? American Journal of Psychiatry.2008;165:1449.
- Abrahm JL. Caring for patients at the end of life. In: Abeloff MD, et al. Abeloff's Clinical Oncology. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone; 2008. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/149504704-4/862286866/1709/49.html#4-u1.0-B978-0-443-06694-8..50048-8_1340. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Siegel MD, et al. Psychiatric illness in the next of kin of patients who die in the intensive care unit. Critical Care Medicine. 2008;36:1722.
- Complicated grief. National Cancer Institute. http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/pdq/supportivecare/bereavement/Patient/page8. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Major depression and complicated grief. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MBC/content/MBC_4_1X_Major_Depression_and_Complicated_Grief.asp. Accessed July 13, 2009.
- Simon NM, et al. Complicated grief: A case series using escitalopram. American Journal of Psychiatry. 2007;164:1760.
- Prigerson HG, et al. Inventory of complicated grief: A scale to measure maladaptive symptoms of loss. Psychiatry Research. 1995;59:65.
- Hall-Flavin DK (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. July 15, 2009.
