I have the amazing luck to have some friends who are very smart, and who have written some incredibly useful and insightful things. One of them is a friend of mine from college who is a professional counselor, and has had personal experience with grief of her own. I am going to do a short Sunday Series of guest posts, starting with the first part of this essay that touched me immensely.

An Essay by Noble Erickson, MA.

Anybody who has spoken to a professional counselor at a time of loss has likely heard of the Five Stages of Grief. This model was created by psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and first published in her groundbreaking book On Death and Dying in 1969. In her work with the terminally ill and their families, Kübler-Ross noted strong similarities in the reactions of individuals across age, gender, socio-economic-status, ethnic background, spiritual orientation and – most importantly – the cause of death. Since the introduction of her model, mental health professionals have applied it to other types of loss and found it to be very helpful. But the Five Stages were originally created to help those grieving in the face of death, to give context to their emotions and normalize their experience.

As a mental health therapist, I was first introduced to the Stages of Grief in a psychology class my sophomore year of college. They vaguely rang a bell (they’re popular enough in common culture that they crop up in books and sitcoms from time to time) and I appreciated the model on an intellectual level. In my nine years as a professional mental health therapist, I’ve helped clients as they grieved loved ones who died from pointless accidents, drug over-doses and suicide. More than that, I myself have grieved through the loss of all of my grandparents, my father, and my cousin: four age-related deaths, one early death from rare illness, and one death by suicide, respectively. In this essay, I want to share what my professional – and my personal – experience has taught me about the Stages of Grief, and how they are commonly misunderstood.

Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief are as follows: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. The most common misconception about these stages is that they occur sequentially. It would be far more accurate to call these the Five States of Grief, because people may experience them in any order, or more than one at the same time. Similarly, the second most common misconception is that once you have “completed” these stages, are you done with your grieving process. This is far from the truth: people go through the states of grief over and over, sometimes cycling very rapidly and sometimes taking months or even years experiencing a single state. This is normal, and this is OK. We are living beings, which means we develop and learn new things about ourselves through our entire lives; as we develop, we must re-process the most important events in our lives – painful though they may be – in context of our new perspectives. This may not be apparent while it is happening, but this is why grief “pops back up” from time to time.

                There are several misconceptions about the Five Stages individually. People have preconceived ideas about what these states look like/feel like, and so they often do not recognize how their experiences fit. Unfortunately, this can lead many grieving people to believe their feelings and thoughts are “wrong,” or that they are “messed up,” when in fact they are completely normal. In addressing a few the most common misconceptions, I will provide some examples from my personal experience in hopes they will provide some illumination, but of course there is no “wrong way” to grieve.

Denial

Denial can literally be a “No, I don’t believe it” shock reaction in the face of death. It can also be a drawn-out experience of “keeping hope alive” when loved ones are lost, or terminally injured/ill. In the case of suicide, it is very common for friends and family to doubt the intentionality, to suspect an accident or even murder, sometimes in the face of very clear evidence. For me, one of the ways Denial lingers is in regards to my cousin’s suicide, which occurred during the come down from psychoactive drugs: I believe he would not have killed himself if these chemicals were not influencing his mind.

Of course, one of the reasons Denial may return again and again is because death always leaves unanswered questions. But often Denial manifests in small ways regarding the settling of affairs: he would never have wanted such-and-such to happen; she didn’t mean for so-and-so to have that memento. It seems petty, and foolish, but it is the psyche applying “BandAids” to a gaping, painful wound. It is understandable, and it is normal.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, where she touches on Anger and Bargaining.

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