Welcome to PsychEd, the psychiatry podcast for medical learners, by medical learners.

This episode covers the topic of grief with Dr. Cindy Grief, a Geriatric Psychiatrist at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto, where she is the Medical Director for Mental Health Services. She is also an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and has played active roles in postgraduate and continuing education.

The learning objectives for this episode are as follows

1. Explain how acute grief becomes integrated over time, and how the dual process model helps us understand this adaptive process.
2. Recognize the clinical features of Prolonged Grief Disorder, understand factors that may increase vulnerability, and distinguish it from trauma-related disorders and depression.
3. Structure a bereavement-focused clinical history, differentiate the management of normative grief from Prolonged Grief Disorder, and approach suicide risk assessment in the context of grief.

Guest: Dr. Cindy Grief

Hosts: Ahmad Khan (incoming PGY1), Dr. Angad Singh (PGY2), and Sara Abrahamson (MS3)

Audio editing: Dr. Angad Singh

Resources:

• T⁠he Center for Prolonged Grief (https://prolongedgrief.columbia.edu/)
• Canadian Virtual Hospice  (MyGrief.ca)Association for Death Education and Counseling (https://adec.org)
• What’s Your Grief (https://whatsyourgrief.com/)
• Podcasts: AllThere Is; Griefcast

⁠⁠Books/Memoirs:

• Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
• Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk
• C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
• Chimamand Ngozi Adichie, Notes on Grief

Articles:

• A.C. Shilton, “There Is No Vaccine for Grief,” New York Times, March 2, 2021
• M. Stroebe, “The Poetry of Grief: Beyond Scientific Portrayal,” OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying, 2018, 78(1), 67–96

References:

1. Shear, K., Frank, E., Houck, P. R., & Reynolds, C. F., III. (2005). Treatment of complicated grief: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293(21), 2601–2608. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.21.2601

2. Simon, N. M., & Shear, M. K. (2024). Prolonged grief disorder. New England Journal of Medicine, 391(13), 1227–1236. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMcp2308707

3. Zisook, S., & Shear, K. (2009). Grief and bereavement: What psychiatrists need to know. World Psychiatry, 8(2), 67–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2051-5545.2009.tb00217.x