Complicated Grief

A superb piece from the NY Times today introduces a set of psychological symptoms--tentatively called "complicated grief"--associated with mourning that is just now receiving its due attention. While 85% of the population tends to work through the loss of a loved, resuming something like a normal life within months if not weeks, up to 15% of the population has an enormously difficult time 'getting over' grief.  Their loss becomes all consuming, often leading to a cascading series of negative emotions.  These inconsolable mourners are at risk not only of drinking and other forms of addition, but for suicide. 

It seems somehow remarkable that science is only now tracking the chemical and neurological (not to mention emotional and cultural) roots of such deep, persistent, unrelenting grief.  People have been very sad, for a very long time.  Yet we are just supposed to "get over it," as though grief is an elaborate, unproductive exercise in pity-poor-me self-loathing.  Witnessing such grief in other makes us anxious, we become unwilling to engage that person or what seems their protracted obsession with the dead.  Perhaps their grief makes us think we should be grieving more--a subtle guilt that turns us away.  I'm going on a tangent here, but the therapy for complicated grief is quite interesting, involving listening to a recorded remembrance of yourself narrating the loved one's death experience--and listening over and over.  It somehow takes the story out of us, puts it somewhere else, teaches us that we can turn it on and off whenever we choose.  A fascinating idea really; I'm almost surprised it has had such success.  Unfortunately, the millions wrapped tightly in their deep grief will have to wait; the handful of specialist who are trained to treat this condition can't even approach the enormity of the problem, which amounts to something like an epidemic of grief. 

I'm curious how this kind of loss can be related to other, non-personal forms of loss: loss of country, loss of a house, loss of vision, loss of any closely heald ideal.