The Women's Studies Research Center hosted an event titled "On a Slippery Slope: The Medicalization of Grief" this past Thursday in the Epstein Lecture Hall featuring Dr. Phyllis Silverman '69.

Silverman, an author, teacher and researcher, received her Masters degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health and Smith College: School for Social Work. She also received a Ph.D. from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management here at Brandeis. Silverman is currently a scholar-in-residence at the WSRC, and an associate in social welfare in the Department of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Silverman's talk focused primarily on the movement currently taking place in the United States to transform the natural life cycle experience of "grief following a death" into a psychiatric illness, a process with which she disagrees. This development is part of the larger phenomenon of the "medicalization of the human experience," as quoted on the event's webpage.

Clinicians are trying to include broader criteria of symptoms for grief materializing into a depressive disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The current criteria for prolonged grief disorder given by the DSM-IV requires bereavement and expressions of grief for a period lasting in excess of three to six months, according to a report from the DSM-IV.

Silverman discussed how grieving individuals are currently categorized under several umbrella terms of psychiatric or psychological disorder.

"Grief is inevitable, complex, individual and normal," Silverman said in her speech.

Silverman then went on to discuss the medicalization of grief and the significance of drugs for the purpose of "remedying" grief.

The medicalization of grief has had significant implications for pharmaceutical companies. Certain drugs, especially those used for depressive disorders, create dependence, which in turn creates increased use. This contributes to financial gains for the drug companies and clinicians.

The Association for Death Education and Counseling, for which Silverman sits on the board, is an international group that convenes every 18 months to discuss pertinent issues regarding death and bereavement.

The ADEC recently has been focusing primarily on building resilient communities through education and awareness. Making communities aware that outreach resources are available to them is a significant step toward understanding their own experiences with death and grief.

"If grief is something that is medicalized, it will no longer be considered a natural part of the life cycle and a natural cycle that people need to go through in order to continue on with life," said Alli Cohen '12, who partnered with Silverman through the Student-Scholar Partnership program of the WSRC, in an interview with the Justice.

"It'll be looked at as an illness instead. ... Our society should recognize that grief is a natural process," Cohen concluded.