What Are The Stages Of Grief?
In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross specified the five stages of grief, which is an internal pain that can take on many ways as every distinctive individual would assume and treat occurrences differently. Other researchers who are working on the same subject matter have acknowledged these stages and they are also amenable that they come in no particular order but are all component of the grieving process.
These five stages run through the emotional state that almost every individual, dealing with bereavement or any form of loss, will experience at a certain point.
Here are the five stages:
- Denial. This is the first reaction an individual has after losing someone so dear. Initially, this is the phase when a person is in the state of shock and disbelieving that the event is really happening.
- Anger. Why me? Why is this happening? The occurrence has initially been accepted and the person is angry about it. The feeling of anger is a form of defense-mechanism that people use to avoid fully admitting what has occurred.
- Bargaining. This is the stage when a person tries to make a deal or agreement with God.
- Depression. After accepting the reality, anger has gone, and admitted that what have been lost can never be reinstated, a person begins to battle with the feeling of depression. This is perhaps the longest stage that individuals will be into.
- Acceptance. This is now the stage of facing the reality and accepting the fact that losing someone is part of existence and cannot be avoided.
After accepting the reality, people would still have the tendency to remember sad memories and that’s just normal. For them to feel better they sometimes touch the cremation urn containing the ashes of the departed loved one or they wear a cremation jewelry that represents someone who used to be with them.
