“Complicated grief” refers to grief, which doesn’t follow the usual or expected grief pattern due to complicating factors.  When grief is complicated, the grieving individual may not heal in a healthy manner without outside assistance or intervention.  The following signs may indicate that the grieving individual needs professional intervention:

Children and Adolescents

• Chronic or severe somatic symptoms (headaches, stomach aches, etc.)
• Pronounced self-blame
• Chronic school problems
• Nightmares/sleep disturbances
• Extreme regression (return to bedwetting, clinging, thumb-sucking, etc.)
• Poor self-care
• Excessive hopelessness
• Extreme anger/hostility/violence or other extreme acting out/defiance
• Social isolation/extreme withdrawal
• Sudden change in friends/peer group
• Intense separation anxieties or phobias
• Apparent absence of grief or unwillingness to discuss the loss
• Skipping school
• Intense involvement in dating relationship to the exclusion of other friends or activities
• Extreme negativity/gloom
• Intense attraction to the topic of death, or fixation on the subject of death
• Illegal activity/violating the rights of others
• Substance abuse
• Suicidal thoughts…