Crossroads

William G. Hoy Baylor University On April 6, the American Psychiatric Association posted a potential revision to the DSM-5 ( Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ) that is a consensus diagnostic criteria for dealing with persons experiencing grief that seems never to "progress." Herein is one of the great challenges of systematizing such a complex process, a fact I and many others have been pointing out in the context of this debate for a couple of decades now. First, we have a burgeoning scientific basis to substantiate the reality that some individuals ( 7% of all bereaved persons is the current favored estimate ) somehow get "stuck" in their grief. But clinicians do not need data to know this fact; we see it in the countless individuals in our practices who express just such sentiments. In the words of my colleague and friend, Dale Larson , it really boils down to two questions: Are you having trouble with your grief? Would you like some...

William G. Hoy Baylor University On the April 14, 2020 episode of the CBS hit drama NCIS , naval investigators Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham) and Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) interviewed a 95-year old Pearl Harbor veteran who quizzed the two. "When was the attack on Pearl Harbor?" he asked and neither could give a date. "How many died on the U.S.S. Arizona?" he asked more fervently, and again, neither could provide a number. "Then bring in the old Marine with gray hair; I'll only talk to him," the older man demanded. In my clinical faculty role at Baylor , I teach History of Medicine --and I know a little of the older veteran's pain. Many of my young students have little sense of the specifics of what has gone before and when it happened, a point I take as dangerous for the culture in general. As George Santayana wisely reminded us: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Throughout the current Coronavirus...