The five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, were first identified by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. However, they are often misinterpreted as a set of emotions that one will experience in order, and pain can be something that one lives with all the time. While these stages can be helpful in understanding the emotional response to loss, they don’t necessarily come in any particular order and not all stages can be experienced. Grief is not only related to death and dying, but also to traumatic events. Acceptance means that living with pain becomes bearable.
The five stages of grief were terms first identified by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying. While the book was instrumental in helping explain many of the feelings people have had from loss, it is often misinterpreted by the layman as a staged set of emotions that one will experience in order. Once the stages are over, some speculate, the pain will simply dissipate.
The psychological evidence confirms that these assumptions are clearly wrong. Pain can be something you live with all the time. Even the final stage, acceptance, means that part of acceptance isn’t about the death of a person, but about the fact that one will live with pain in some form forever.
So while these stages of grief are experienced very clearly by many, not all stages can be experienced and they don’t necessarily come in any particular order. One can experience several stages at the same time; and when one has progressed through all the stages, one still feels a loss.
Kubler-Ross may have done a disservice in some respects, but when stages are taken loosely, they can be helpful in understanding the emotional response to loss or anticipating the loss of a loved one. Furthermore, grief is not only related to death and dying, but also to traumatic events: a rape, a child’s illness, an abusive childhood, a divorce, or even moving to a country or losing a job.
The five stages of grief, as described by Kubler-Ross, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the more traditional model, denial tends to be the first emotion experienced by sufferers. Denial could also be called disbelief. Even if a death was predicted, it’s hard to believe it happened. People “know” that death has occurred, but part of their minds resists letting this knowledge creep in.
Denial is, in a sense, a way of avoiding later pain. If you can only pretend, then it can still work. When denial gives way, the person may be flooded with strong emotions of depression and sadness and find it very difficult to participate in normal life.
People may follow up the denial with anger or bargaining. Bargaining is an attempt to come to terms with a spiritual understanding of what happened. If a person has specific spiritual beliefs, he may wonder how any God could have allowed her to be lost. For those foreseeing a death, bargaining may be the first step, to avoid an imminent loss.
Anger can involve anger at oneself, the person who died, the people who should have prevented it, the world at large. Anger can be directed at one’s spiritual beliefs when the bargaining has clearly not worked out. Some people can’t get over their anger for a long time, especially those with past long-term trauma.
Anger is also a defense to actually having our feelings, according to many therapists. Angry people often turn into tears, because the basis of anger is usually a deep and significant type of depression. It is an outward expression of the pain within.
It’s hard to predict how long the depression will last. For some, depression could signal an underlying condition such as major depressive disorder. Depression can be expressed as a disinterest in the world. People may find that they can no longer “work” at jobs. They may want to crawl into bed and stay there. Depression due to grief can also come in waves. One may revert to denial or anger before being overwhelmed again.
Acceptance means several things according to Kubler-Ross. A person who dies may find that they are “ready” at some point. Those who see a loved one die may come to accept that the person needs to move on. Acceptance can also be the point where living with pain becomes bearable. People can go back to their lives knowing full well that their pain is now a part of them, but it doesn’t have to consume them.
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