He calls his essay an "attempt to take a balanced view of the arguments for and against diagnosing Complicated Grief," and whether one agrees that his view is balanced, he does an excellent job of summarizing his topic, delving into everything from Holly Prigerson's and Kathyrn Shear's point of view to key ideas from authors featured in a recently published book of scholarly essays on Complicated Grief, which Wilson calls "a seminal collection of writing."

He thoughtfully covers the issue of what constitutes normal grief and grief from a traumatic death and identifies the features proposed to distinguish Complicated Grief from both, namely its intensity, duration, and effect on a person's functioning. He elaborates on this latter feature, which is most interesting to me -- for it is a person's ability to function in life that I rely on to determine if someone I am working with might need more assistance than I am able to offer.

The value of Wilson's essay, in part, is that it shows a clinician -- who is not also a researcher -- trying to grapple with the difficult questions of Complicated Grief (or not) and grief as a malady (or not). To his statement (which is, I believe, a paraphrase of Therese Rando's thinking) "it is the idiosyncratic, complex nature of all grief, normal and complicated, that defines the problem," I would add that the problem also lies in trying to answer such questions in a reductive way, which to me is the crux of the matter.

For practitioners, this concept reminds us of the importance of a client-centred approach rather than a reliance on textbooks to tell us what to expect, both in healthy and dysfunctional grief ... Clients are not there to fit into neat theories, they are individuals. We can and should learn about grief by listening closely to their human experience.

One of my tasks for publishing the Grief after Suicide blog is, daily, to look at 100 to 200 headlines related to suicide or suicide bereavement. A computer program collects them from the Internet and organizes them into lists for me, one list of headlines on the topic of suicide only, another list on grief only, and another list on suicide and grief. I read the top two or three paragraphs of a dozen or more of the stories I encounter every day, and I read a handful in their entirety. I've been doing this for months, and I did it for a couple of years back in 2008-2010, when I was publishing Suicide Prevention News & Comment.

I've been thinking about the cumulative effect on me of being exposed to all of those reports on suicide. Even if they're about survivors' growth and healing, there is heartbreak in every one of them; and in fact, many are provocatively sorrowful, and a few include graphic details of a death. Why is it that I do not feel traumatized by this? Am I detached? Numb? Have I compartmentalized the suffering caused by suicide? Have I been desensitized to it?

I don't think so. Here is what my experience has been and some observations about my reactions ...

Here are two websites that cover every aspect of PTSD, including what it is, what to do about it, who to contact, and how you can be helpful to others:

Early responders play a vital role in supporting people who have lost someone they care about, someone they know who has died by suicide. Suicide loss is profoundly different than other loss and grief in that it is a intentional act that can have crippling effects for the family, friends and other survivors. Suicide ... is a complex, multi-faceted problem leaving some survivors who have a loved one die by suicide with their life as they knew it changed forever.

Whatever reactions, feelings, or questions the survivor has ... this is understandable and alright considering the terrible situation and loss they have experienced. There is no right or wrong way to feel, respond or grieve.

mental health crises [that] may include intense feelings of personal distress (anxiety, depression, anger, panic, or hopelessness), obvious changes in functioning ... or catastrophic life events.

• Ensure that standards consistent with recovery and resilience guide ... crisis interventions.
• Replace today's largely reactive and cyclical approach to ... crises with one that works toward reducing the likelihood of future emergencies and that produces better outcomes.

In a feature story published in 2011 when Rebirth was first released, Doris Toumarkine writes for Film Journal International:

While Rebirth makes fascinating use of the time-lapse footage of the rebuilding, it is the profoundly affected five subjects with compelling stories of trauma, bravery and recovery who provide the emotional life and narrative spine of the film. Their presence, also recorded over many years ... and captured digitally as they sit alone against a black background, gives the picture the distinction of being the first long-term film record of 9/11 survivors and families coping with grief and trauma.