When Cody Delistraty lost his mother in 2014, he was surprised by the various ways that he, his brother and his father dealt with their grief. The journalist and speechwriter had expected his family’s experiences to be aligned, that there would be a, “homogeneity to grieving.” The differences led Delistraty to wonder whether loss was more complicated than advertised.
In America, grief is often framed as a journey from Point A to Point B, a linear path efficiently chugging through stages like denial and anger, ultimately heading toward acceptance. But anyone who has experienced a loss firsthand understands that it isn’t so simple. Grief can be isolating, confusing and unyielding.
In 2022, a new addition to the DSM-5 (“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”) caught Delistraty’s eye: prolonged grief disorder. It’s a rare condition in which grief becomes so severe that it interferes with daily life. The classification opens the door to medical solutions: pharmaceuticals are in early testing stages, and a slew of new digital, psychedelic and other treatments are emerging.
Delistraty’s new book, “ The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss ,” (Harper) follows his inquisitive sampling of available and future therapies, all while wondering whether grief is a problem that needs to be solved. Your understanding of grief initially centered on a concept known as the five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. How did that shif.
