grief news stories on Newser

The APA Must Not 'Pathologize Grief'

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:32:54 CDT

Jerry Adler lost his son, Max, in 2008 and he still feels “intense sorrow and emotional pain,” not to mention “intense anger,” over the loss at least once per day—which means the American Psychiatric Association could soon label him as suffering from an “adjustment disorder.” The APA is revising...

Amy Winehouse Haters, Please Save the Sanctimony

John Johnson — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:00:50 CDT

Mary Elizabeth Williams has heard about enough from the holier-than-thou folks carping about Amy Winehouse coverage. You've heard it all: Winehouse got what she deserved, I told you so, or why waste time on her when people are dying in Norway, Africa, fill in the blank. "God forbid a young...

Chimps Grieve Like Us

Kevin Spak — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:39:00 CDT

Chimpanzees appear to understand death, and grieve in ways strikingly similar to their less hairy evolutionary cousins, new research suggests. In 2008, scientists got a rare glimpse of this mourning process when a 50-year-old chimp named Pansy died in a Scottish safari park, LiveScience explains. In the days before, the...

Achy Hearts Are Breaky

Emily Rauhala — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:36 CST

Turns out hearts can actually "break" for those who suffer meltdowns. Doctors have identified a mysterious ailment called broken-heart syndrome that mimics heart attacks but is not connected to coronary artery disease. It's "a heart attack which is triggered by stress rather than by a blocked artery," one cardiologist tells...

Travolta 'Struggling' With Son's Death: Denzel

Neal Colgrass — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:00:00 CDT

Denzel Washington said today he recently spent hours on the phone listening to John Travolta grieve over the death of his son, People reports. "Needless to say, he's struggling," said Washington at a press conference for their film, Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 . "So more than talking to him,...

William Opens Up on Loss of 'Mummy'

Sarah Quinn — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:55:31 CDT

Prince William makes his first public acknowledgment about the grief he felt after losing his mother in a Daily Mirror essay. "Never being able to say the word 'Mummy' again in your life sounds like a small thing," he writes. "However, for many, including me, it's now really just a...

Quake Grief Compounded for Single-Child Chinese Families

Rob Quinn — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:26:06 CDT

Thousands of parents in China's earthquake-hit Sichuan province are grieving for their children today and for most, the misery is particularly heart-wrenching because they have lost their only child, reports the New York Times. China's one-child policy was strictly enforced in the poor and populous province, and the quake took...

First Film Was Minghella's Finest Work

Evann Gastaldo — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:45:57 CDT

He might be known for his sweep of the 1996 Academy Awards with The English Patient , but director Anthony Minghella should be remembered for his first film, Dana Stevens writes in Slate. Truly, Madly, Deeply , a 1990 made-for-TV movie that's now something of a cult classic, is a "psychologically accurate...

Eulogy Offers Some Answers

M. Morris — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:17:00 CST

The questions have echoed through the ages, ever since people started dying and leaving behind loved ones able to express the sentiment: Why? Why now? Now what? Writing for the Newsweek/Washington Post website "On Faith," Sally Quinn points her readers to the extraordinary eulogy Erik Kolbell delivered last week at...