Bereavement is generally regarded as one of the most stressful events one can encounter. Yet, bereavement research and the study of post-traumatic stress seem to be mainly developing along separate lines. Strictly speaking, post-traumatic stress disorder can only occur after encountering events outside the range of normal human experience. Thus, by definition bereavement does not seem to meet the criteria of PTSD. The question remains, however, whether this separate development and formal exclusion of bereavement can be justified by empirical research. To address this question, data are presented of 128 conjugally bereaved in a two-year longitudinal study. It appears that only 50% of the participants does not meet PTSD case-level at any time and 9% meets the criteria at all four data collection points. Interpretation of these findings are discussed in terms of appropriateness of the DSM-III-R criteria regarding PTSD.