Lesson of the week. Life threatening symptoms due to morbid grief.

Psychiatric illness is a known hazard after a bereavement. Though bereavement counselling is effective in preventing morbidity, patients with morbid grief reactions are more difficult to treat, and the doctor needs to be skilled in confrontative and cathartic techniques.' I report on a patient who was both bereaved and became seriously ill as a result of that bereavement. To my knowledge this is the first report of a case of morbid grief in which the symptoms were life threatening.