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Stages of grief
Stages of grief
You may have heard of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They are one of the best-known ways of describing experiences associated with death and grief.
Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the model in On Death and Dying in 1969. Her work originally explored the experiences of people with terminal illness facing their own death, rather than people who had been bereaved. The model was later widely applied to grief and other significant changes. Kübler-Ross later worked with grief specialist David Kessler, who subsequently proposed a sixth stage: finding meaning.
The stages are often presented as a sequence, which can suggest that grief follows an orderly path from denial through to acceptance or meaning. It may be more helpful to think of them as possible experiences within grief rather than steps you are expected to complete.
What might these experiences feel like?
The stages can provide useful words for some experiences, but they will not describe everyone’s grief. You may recognise several of them, return to some at different times, or not identify with them at all. You might:
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struggle to take in that someone has died, even while knowing it has happened
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feel angry with the person who died, yourself, other people or what happened
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find yourself thinking, ‘if only I had…’ or ‘what if things had been different?’
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experience periods of deep sadness, withdrawal or less interest in everyday life
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recognise the reality of the death while continuing to miss the person
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move between different feelings rather than leaving one behind when another appears
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find that another bereavement brings very different feelings
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find meaning through memories, relationships, beliefs, activities or values that become important to you.
You may experience some of these, all of them or none of them. Acceptance does not mean being happy about what happened or no longer grieving. Finding meaning does not mean finding a reason for the death. It can instead describe ways in which memories, relationships or values continue to have meaning alongside your loss.
How might counselling help?
The stages can offer language for experiences that are difficult to describe, but they are not a measure of whether you are grieving in the ‘right’ way.
Counselling offers a confidential space to explore what grief is like for you. There is no expectation that your experience should fit a particular stage, order or timetable. Instead, you can explore the feelings, questions and changes that matter to you.