Grief as a Disease Process

Many years ago, Engel pointed out that grief fulfills all the requirements of a disease process. Despite the current interest in grief, most studies have concentrated on the psychological results of grief and the dysfunction associated with it; the physiological consequences have been largely ignored. The persistent reports of infection and neoplasia following shortly after a grief experience, makes it mandatory that the relationship between grief as a stress mechanism and its consequences via the pituitary-adrenal axis on the depression of the immune response, be explored on a physiological level.