November 30, 2017
Professor Serife Tekin
"Grief, Depression, and Justice in Mental Health Care"
At 6:00 pm on Thursday, November 30, 2017, Professor Serife Tekin gave a public lecture titled "Grief, Depression, and Justice in Mental Health Care". The talk was hosted in Carbone Auditorium on Utica College's campus at 1600 Burrstone Rd., Utica, NY. 
Professor Tekin noted that in the latest edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the DSM-5, the bereavement exclusion criterion has been removed from the diagnostic criteria for a Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Thus, the DSM-5 now individuates grief-related emotional struggles following a significant loss as MDD, by highlighting their similar symptoms. The controversial debate on whether to remove the bereavement exclusion from the DSM’s depression criteria has mostly focused on whether depression and grief related distress are in fact distinct. In this talk, she used a different argument to address the problems inherent in this change. Even if we assume that there is no meaningful difference between the properties of grief-related distress and depression, evaluating the two on a par presents ethical challenges in the just addressing the needs of persons going through grief.
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