New guide brands grief a mental disorder PEOPLE grieving for a loved one will soon be at risk of being diagnosed as clinically depressed, a leading Australian professor of psychiatry says. Professor Gordon Parker of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is concerned about changes to the way a new guide to diagnosing mental disorders deals with grief. There is a risk of pathologising normal grief, says Prof Parker. This could lead to unnecessary and inappropriate treatment with antidepressants or antipsychotic drugs. "There has been increasing public and professional concern about the DSM-5 (the new guide)," he says in a paper published in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. Prof Parker's paper considers how grief and clinical depression can and should be differentiated. In depression there is always a drop in self esteem. In grief there is no drop in self-esteem. It is more a state of separation distress," he says. Grief is a normal phenomenon that generally does not require treatment, whereas clinical depression is a diagnosable mental disorder, which responds to various forms of treatment, including drugs. The diagnostic guide, DSM-5, will be adopted in most parts of the world in May, including Australia and New Zealand.