Grief as an emotion and as a disease: A social-constructionist perspective.

This paper examines grief as an emotion and contrasts it with an alternative conception of grief as a disease. Emotions and (to a lesser extent) diseases are constituted, in part, through their relation to social systems. Recently, there has been a trend toward “treating” grief within the health care system. As this trend continues, grief will inevitably accrue some of the aspects of a disease, and it will lose some of its meaning as an emotion. The theoretical and social implications of this shift in meaning are explored.