Diagnosing and medicating grief as illness Essay

Diagnosing and medicating grief as illness - Essay Example Gup’s argument for alternative emotions management strategies, to medication is also justified. Grief has not been classified as depression, until the new D.S.M. publication, and the proposed management strategy may be a risky shortcut. Gup agues for use of coping skills and these appear to empower psychologically and to ensure a long lasting solution to emotions. In addition, understanding emotions such as grief to be non-medical conditions also justifies the call that medications should not be used for management. Traditional understanding of management of emotions such as grief also validates Gup’s position against medication of emotions. Grief normally transforms people’s lives and could motivate the grieving person of help the person identify opportunities for progression in life and medicating grief denies a person an opportunity for transformation. Grief is also a way of expressing love for what a person has lost and medical treatment therefore undermines the emotional aspect of grief. In addition, counseling that has been used as a strategy to managing grief requires acceptance of loss and the need to shift the pain to emotional development. Medication doses not however address the suffered loss and could therefore be a short-term solution yet a long-term solution is more appropriate. It is also important to note that crisis into emotions can be best understood from the beholder’s perspective. However, medication is based on a practitioner’s perspective and could therefore undermine resolving the real problem into grief.