What is complicated grief? A social constructionist perspective

Research into complicated grief assumes that it is a psychological disorder of the grieving individual. This article suggests seven other things that complicated grief may also be: a normalizing construct of psychiatric medicine, an operational requirement of bereavement agencies, a concept by which society as a whole and families can discipline mourning members, a label applied to those who actively resist cultural norms about grief, a product of a society obsessed with risk, and the result of negotiation between various parties in the bereavement field. If complicated grief exists, it is much more multi-faceted than is usually acknowledged. Grief, like death itself, is undisciplined, risky, wild. That society seeks to discipline grief, as part of its policing of the border between life and death, is predictable, and it is equally predictable that modem society would medicalize grief as the means of policing (Foote & Frank, 1999, p. 170).