What you need to know about the five stages of grief
The five stages of grief is a well known idea from grief research, but its not as straightforward as it sounds.
When you’re grieving, it can be a really confusing time, and its normal to want to try make sense of the experience. When I see clients for grief counselling, they ask things like:
what feelings are normal when I’m grieving?
how long will my grief last for?
is it wrong that I feel angry (or any other feeling) about a bereavement?
Often, they will have heard of the ‘five stages of grief’ and they want to know what stage they’re in, and what stage will be next. Most of all, they want to know when the five stages will be ‘finished’ and when they will start to feel better.
This is so understandable, but in my experience, the five stages of grief aren’t the best way to understand the grief experience. But don’t worry, there are more helpful ways to make sense of bereavement and loss, such as the ‘tasks of mourning’ model.
So, these are the four things I tell my therapy clients who have experienced a bereavement or other loss about the five stages of grief.
1.What are the five stages of grief anyway?
In the 196os, Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross came up with the idea of the five stages of grief.
The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
If you’re grieving, it’s very likely that you have experienced at least one of these five. Actually, it wouldn’t be surprising if you'd experienced most or all of them. However, there are lots of other common grief experiences that aren’t included in that list.
Numbness, guilt, confusion, frustration, jealousy, relief, fear - these are all emotions that are common when you’re grieving.
The five stage idea can make people worried that they’re not feeling the right way about their grief, but the truth is there is no right way to feel after a loss.
2. The five stages were based on the experience of a terminal illness diagnosis
Kubler-Ross based the five stages on her observations of her terminally ill patients. In my opinion the stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - make a lot more sense when you know this.
You can imagine most people try to bargain with a diagnosis - what if I tried a different medicine or changed my lifestyle? But bargaining might not be as common or prominent in those who have lost a loved one in a sudden accident, for example.
Everyone has an individual experience of grief, even when the circumstances of the loss are similar. Trying to expand a description of a specific circumstance of loss (terminal illness diagnosis) to fit everyones grief experience isn’t necessarily helpful.
3. The five stages weren’t meant to be in any particular order
As I said, people sometimes ask about the five stages because they want to know how they’ll feel next or when their grief will be over. When you’re in the middle of the grief, a simple five step process can be very appealing.
However, Kubler-Ross never meant for her stages to be understood that way. People go back and forth between the stages, maybe they bargain at first, then they are depressed, then they accept it, then they are angry. They might skip some stages entirely.
So knowing about the five stages doesn’t really help you to know how grief will be for you. No one can give you a roadmap for your grief. However, counselling can help you to understand how you’re feeling and move through the grieving process.
4. Instead of the five stages of grief, think of the four tasks of mourning
Everyone’s grief experience is individual, but looking at what the experts say can give us some ideas of what to expect. That’s why people like the idea of the five stages of grief.
However, I find Worden’s idea of the ‘four tasks of mourning’ to be more useful. He believes that the four tasks are the following:
to accept the reality of the loss
to experience the pain of the loss
to adjust to the environment where the deceased is missing
to relocate the deceased and invest in a new life.
Like the stages of grief, these tasks don’t necessarily happen in order and you can move back and forth between tasks.
The tasks of mourning make grief feel like a more active process - grief is not just emotions you are experiencing, it is work. And it is hard work. I support my clients doing this work every week, piece by piece as they adjust to their life without their loved one.
Counselling can help you to understand the grieving process
Grieving is an intense and difficult process. Rather than just being something happens to us, it is an active process of learning how to live in a different way. How to cope with all of the emotions brought up by your loss. Working to create a life for yourself that is different than you imagine or hoped for, but that can still be fulfilling and meaningful.
Sometimes, this process is difficult and we feel that we need more support. If you’re feeling like you would like counselling or therapy to help you better understand your grief and your grieving process, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me on 089 240 5449 or by email at jennydunnetherapy@gmail.com to arrange a free consultation call to see if counselling may be helpful for you.
