Prolonged Grief Therapy

What is PGT?

Prolonged Grief Therapy (PGT) is a treatment specifically designed to help people who feel stuck in their grief. The treatment has a specified time frame and targets 6 Healing Milestones. Therapists trained to do this treatment are skilled in meeting grievers where they are and helping them learn ways to accept their new reality and restore their wellbeing through gentle guidance. The therapy includes sharing and discussing information about grief and adapting to loss and the use of a series of activities that promote experiential learning along as well. 

The Evidence-Base for PGT

The efficacy of PGT was tested in 3 carefully conducted research studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. One was focused on older adults and the other two on adults of any age. Since Prolonged Grief is most often confused with depression, we compared PGT to well established efficacious treatment for depression. More specifically, two of the studies compared PGT to Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) for Depression, and one evaluated whether antidepressant medication was effective for grief when administered by a grief-informed physician and also whether it improved the outcome of PGT. Here’s what we found: 

• PGT was twice as effective as IPT in reducing grief intensity and the degree to which the loss disrupts a person’s life
• Antidepressant medication had no effect on grief symptoms; however, the addition of medication did help reduce co-occurring depressive symptoms when present
• Rates of suicidal ideation diminished to a substantially greater extent among participants receiving PGT than among those who did not