When Grief Gets a Label: Are We Asking the Wrong Question?

Pet grief doesn’t always follow the neat timelines we like to imagine

A recent piece of research has made the headlines for one main reason: it found that people can experience something called Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) after the death of a pet in much the same way as after the death of a person.

For many, that might feel surprising. For anyone who has ever loved an animal deeply, it probably doesn’t.

The study shows that grief doesn’t always follow the neat timelines we like to imagine. Some people struggle for months or years after a loss. Their world doesn’t “bounce back”.

Life doesn’t simply return to normal. And importantly, this can happen whether the loss is a partner, a parent, a friend, or a pet.

On one level, this research matters. It helps people feel seen. It says: “You’re not weak. You’re not imagining this. This is real.” That validation is important.

But there’s something about the way we respond to grief that feels increasingly back to front.

When Grief Becomes a Diagnosis

Prolonged Grief Disorder exists to identify people who are really struggling, so they can access help. That’s the intention - and it has value.

The problem comes when grief only seems to “count” once it’s given a medical label.

Too often, the message people receive - quietly or not - is: “If you’re still grieving, something must be wrong with you.”

The danger here is subtle but serious. Grief starts to look like a personal failure:

• a failure to move on

• a failure to cope

• a failure to be resilient enough

Instead of asking what has happened to someone, we start asking what is wrong with them.

The Real Issue Isn’t Grief - It’s How We Respond to It

What this research really highlights isn’t that more people are “disordered”. It’s that we live in a society that is deeply uncomfortable with grief.

We expect people to:

• return to work quickly

• stop talking about the person (or animal) who died

• be “better” within a socially acceptable timeframe

When they don’t, we often withdraw, minimise, or suggest professional help, not because support is bad, but because we don’t know how to sit with grief ourselves.

In that context, diagnosing grief can become a workaround. A way of managing something we don’t want to fully acknowledge.

Are We Putting the Responsibility in the Wrong Place?

There’s a bigger question we need to ask:

Are we really facing a ‘grief’ problem - or a ‘societal response to grief’ problem?

If someone is still deeply grieving a year later, maybe the issue isn’t that they haven’t moved on. Maybe it’s that:

• they weren’t supported early on

• their loss wasn’t taken seriously

• their grief had nowhere to go

When grief isn’t welcomed, it doesn’t disappear. It goes underground.

What If We Did Better, Together?

Recognising PGD may help some people access care. That matters. But it shouldn’t be the only doorway to compassion.

Grief doesn’t need fixing as much as it needs understanding.

What if, instead of asking “Why are you still grieving?”, we asked:

• “Who has been there for you?”

• “Where have you been able to speak freely?”

• “What support did you not receive?”

Grief is not a personal defect. It’s a natural response to loss in a world that often doesn’t know how to respond.

If this research tells us anything, it’s not that grief needs more labels but that we need to do better at being human with one another when loss happens.

At Grief Specialists, we believe the responsibility shouldn’t rest solely on the grieving person to “recover”. It sits with all of us: families, workplaces, services, and communities, to understand grief better, respond more kindly, and make space for it without judgement.

Because grief isn’t a failure to move on.

It’s a sign that something meaningful was loved.

About Laurie

Laurie Hole is a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist specialising in grief, loss, and change. With an MA in Counselling & Psychotherapy and certification as a bereavement counsellor, Laurie provides compassionate support to adults across the UK through online sessions. You can learn more about Laurie here.