Grief has no prescribed timetable. For most people, its intensity gradually changes as they learn to live with the absence of someone they love. For some, however, grief remains persistently overwhelming, making it difficult to engage with everyday life, sustain relationships or imagine a meaningful future.
Understanding Prolonged Grief Disorder
Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) is a recognised mental health condition characterised by persistent, intense grief that significantly affects a person’s ability to function. It is more than simply missing someone for a long time. It involves enduring emotional distress and difficulty adapting to the reality of the death, beyond what would be expected within the person’s cultural, social or religious context.
Importantly, continuing to love, miss or grieve someone many years after their death does not, in itself, indicate a disorder.
Recognising Prolonged Grief Disorder
Experiences may include:
- Intense, persistent longing or yearning for the person who has died.
- Feeling preoccupied with thoughts or memories of the deceased.
- Difficulty accepting the reality of the death.
- A profound sense of emptiness, loneliness or loss of identity.
- Difficulty reconnecting with relationships, activities or everyday life.
- Emotional numbness or an inability to experience positive emotions.
- Feeling that life has lost its meaning or that the future is difficult to imagine.
- Avoiding reminders of the loss or experiencing overwhelming distress when confronted with them.
These experiences must be considered in relation to their duration, severity and impact on daily functioning. Not everyone experiencing persistent grief has Prolonged Grief Disorder.
When does grief become Prolonged Grief Disorder?
Prolonged Grief Disorder is recognised in both the World Health Organization’s ICD-11 and the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5-TR, although their diagnostic criteria differ. Under ICD-11, the grief response must have persisted for an atypically long period, at least six months after the death. Under DSM-5-TR, the minimum is 12 months for adults and six months for children and adolescents.
Both require clinically significant distress or impairment and consideration of the person’s cultural and social circumstances. A diagnosis should follow a comprehensive psychological assessment rather than being based on the duration of grief alone.
How can therapy help?
At The Grief Clinic™, we recognise that persistent, overwhelming grief can leave people feeling profoundly isolated, particularly when those around them expect them to have moved on. Our specialist psychological approach provides a compassionate space to understand your grief, explore the relationship you have lost and address the emotional difficulties that may be preventing you from reconnecting with life.
Therapy can help you gradually engage with painful memories, navigate feelings of guilt or avoidance, rebuild meaningful relationships and rediscover a sense of identity and purpose. Where appropriate, treatment may include evidence-based interventions specifically developed for Prolonged Grief Disorder.
Our aim is not to diminish your love or encourage you to forget. It is to help you find ways to carry your loss without remaining overwhelmed by its pain.
You can continue to love and remember someone while reclaiming your capacity to live meaningfully.