Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's Stages of Grief

[lpetrich]

Psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is best-known for proposing five stages of grief as a result of death or a terminal illness or other great misfortune.  Kübler-Ross model, Five Stages Of Grief - Understanding the Kubler-Ross Model

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

However, her model has gotten a lot of criticism, since many people go through only some of these stages, and since many people do not go through these stages in sequence. EKR herself acknowledged these criticisms, and she conceded that her model was overly simple. I think that she constructed her model by assembling a sort of "average" grief sequence from her observations.

 

[Politesse]

Models in the social sciences always get watered down quite a bit on their way to the general public. If you read On Death and Dying, she's quite clear in the text that her interviewees formed their own distinct patterns of grief; the "stages" are common trends in the expression of grief, called stages because they tend to occur in noticeable stages over time,not because they occur in a strict numerical order. Indeed, she devotes most of a chapter to discussing the complex situation in which seemingly incompatible stages (denial and acceptance, for instance) coincide for a period of time. Indeed, I wish more people did read the book themselves, as its principal concerns are every bit as pertinent and urgent as they ever were. She was a strong advocate for hospice care and patient-oriented approaches to terminal illness, and she offers invaluable insight and advice for their caretakers.