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Our Next Lecture

Prolonged Grief Disorder and Its Treatment

M. Katherine Shear , MD

Wednesday, October 19 at 2:00pm ET 

Image by Jim Plante of Pixabay

About the Presenter

M. KATHERNIE SHEAR, MD is the Marion E. Kenworthy Professor of Psychiatry and the founding Director of the Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia University School of Social Work. Dr. Shear is a clinical researcher who first worked in anxiety and depression. For the past 25 years, she has focused on understanding and treating people who experience persistent, intense grief, which is now an official diagnosis called Prolonged Grief Disorder in the ICD-11 and DSM-5. She developed and tested Complicated Grief Therapy/Prolonged Grief Disorder Therapy (PGDT), a short-term, strength-based intervention that helps foster adaptation to loss and confirmed its efficacy in three large NIMH-funded studies.  Dr. Shear is widely recognized for her work in bereavement, including both research and clinical awards from the Association for Death Education and Counseling and invited authorship of articles for UpToDate and The New England Journal of Medicine. Her work includes more than 330 peer-reviewed publications. She’s developed several widely used assessment instruments and a PGDT instruction manual.  Dr. Shear received a BS in biology with honors from the University of Chicago and an MD from Tufts University Medical School. She completed residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and a psychosomatic fellowship before beginning her clinical research career.

About the Topic

Prolonged Grief Disorder is a new diagnosis in official diagnostic systems developed by the World Health Organization (International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11)) and the American Psychiatric Association (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR)). In this presentation, Dr. Katherine Shear will explain the relationship between usual grief, complicated grief, and Prolonged Grief Disorder and describe how to recognize the latter. She’ll also provide an overview of the principles and procedures of Prolonged Grief Disorder Therapy, a short-term, highly effective therapy for this condition. 

For more information and to explore resources for professionals and the public, please visit the website of the Center for Prolonged Grief (part of the Columbia University School of Social Work), of which Dr. Shear is the director. 

Featured Article

Grief: Different Reactions and Timelines in the Aftermath of Loss

After loss, there is no specific way to grieve that is right or wrong. There's not a normal length of time to grieve either. While everyone experiences grief differently, there are many common grief reactions. Learn about common grief reactions and how to recognize who would benefit from treatment for grief.

Read the full version of this article on the National Center for PTSD website

Free Resources

More Grief Resources

Our website offers additional information about grief that can be shared with clients and family members.

• Grief: Taking Care of Yourself After a Loss (Available en Español)  There are many ways to take care of yourself when you are grieving. Learn about factors that may influence self-care strategies, challenges grieving death resulting from disaster or public health crisis and strategies noted by others to help reduce grief over time.
• Grief: Helping Someone Else After a Loss (Available en Español)  It is not always clear how to help someone manage grief. You may have to make choices about how to offer support to someone after a loss. Learn about factors that may affect your options and some ways you can be there for someone who is grieving.

Disaster Resources

Now that hurricane season is upon us, we want to remind you that our website contains a variety of resources to help with post-disaster mental health needs.  Providers: please reach out to us if we can support you in supporting your community.

To share with the public:

• Resources for Survivors and the Public Following Sudden Trauma
• What to Expect in the Wake of Disaster | En Español
• Help for Survivors in the Aftermath of Disaster and Mass Violence
• Self-Care After Disasters

For providers: see the disaster section of the Types of Trauma page, which links to many other articles and resources, including Psychological First Aid (PFA) and Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR) manuals and related materials. 

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Our team of expert clinicians is available to consult with any healthcare provider treating U.S. veterans in any setting.   We can discuss assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy, medications, collaborating with VA care, patient and family education, continuing education, and just about anything else related to veterans and PTSD.  No question is too big or too small. Contact us at PTSDconsult@va.gov or 866-948-7880.