Five stages of grief
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Kubler-Ross model for death and bereavementcounselling, personal change and trauma
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
(which is the correct spelling; Elizabeth Kubler Ross is a commonincorrect form and used above for search-engine visibility). Incidentally, 'counselling' is UK English and 'counseling' is US English.
Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
pioneered methods in the support and counselling of personaltrauma, grief and grieving, associated with death and dying. She also dramatically improvedthe understanding and practices in relation to bereavement and hospice care.Her ideas, notably thefive stages of grief model(denial, anger, bargaining, depression,acceptance), are also transferable to personal change and emotional upset resulting fromfactors other than death and dying.We can clearly observe similar reactions to those explained by Kübler-Ross's grief model in people confronted with far less serious traumas than death and bereavement, such as by work redundancy, enforced relocation, crime and punishment, disability and injury, relationship break-up, financial despair and bankruptcy, etc.This makes the model worthy of study and reference far outside of death and bereavement.The 'grief cycle' is actually a 'change model' for helping to understand and deal with (andcounsel) personal reaction to trauma. It's not just for death and dying.This is because trauma and emotional shock are relative in terms of effect on people. Whiledeath and dying are for many people the ultimate trauma, people can experience similar emotional upsets when dealing with many of life's challenges, especially if confrontingsomething difficult for the first time, and/or if the challenge happens to threaten an area of psychological weakness, which we all possess in different ways. One person's despair (a job-change, or exposure to risk or phobia, etc) is to another person not threatening at all. Some people love snakes and climbing mountains, whereas to others these are intensely scary
things. Emotional response, and trauma, must be seen in relative not absolute terms. Themodel helps remind us that the other person's perspective is different to our own, whether weare the one in shock, or the one helping another to deal with their upset.The study of death and dying is actually known as thanatology (from the Greek word'thanatos' meaning death). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is accordingly sometimes referred to as athanatologist, and she is considered to have contributed significantly to the creation of thegenre of thanatology itself.Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's seminal book was On Death & Dying, published in 1969, in whichshe explained her now classically regarded 'five stages of grief'. The book and its ideas werequite revolutionary at the time, reflecting Kübler-Ross's outspoken and bold approach, whichis paradoxical given the sensitivity and compassion of her concepts.
Kübler-Ross
was a catalyst. She opened up and challenged previously conservative (sweep itunder the carpet, don't discuss it, etc) theories and practices relating to death and bereavement, and received an enormously favourable response among carers, the dying andthe bereaved, which perhaps indicates the level of denial and suppression that had earlier characterised conventional views about the subject - particularly in the western world, wheredeath is more of a taboo than in certain other cultures.As stated, and important to emphasise, Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief model wasdeveloped initially as a model for helping dying patients to cope with death and bereavement,however the concept also provides insight and guidance for coming to terms with personaltrauma and change, and for helping others with emotional adjustment and coping, whatever the cause. This has probably helped her ideas to spread and to enter 'mainstream' thinking.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
and her ideas have now become synonymous with emotionalresponse to trauma, and to grief support and counselling, much likeMaslowis fundamentallyassociated with motivational theory;Kolb with learning styles, and Gardner with multiple
intelligence.As with much other brilliant pioneering work, the Kübler-Ross model is elegantly simple. Thefive stages of grief modelis summarised and interpreted below.This Kübler-Ross five stages and terminology are featured here with permission from theElisabeth Kübler Ross Foundation, which is gratefully acknowledged. Please look at the twowebsiteswww.ekrfoundation.org, andwww.elisabthkublerross.com, both of which enable and
sustain Dr Kübler-Ross's values and mission, and extend help to those who need it.Please be aware that the interpretation and contextual material on this webpage represents myown thoughts on the subject. I would encourage you to develop your own ideas too - this is adeeply significant area and one that can be interpreted in many ways. My interpretation andassociations are not an attempt to reproduce Kübler-Ross's thinking, they seek to provide amodern context, and to relate the basic model to the philosophies of this website.Use of and reference to the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross five stages for commercial purposes, and publication of EKR quotations, require permission from the EKR Foundation. You can usefreely the other aspects of this page subject to the normaltermsfor using this website, brieflysummarised at the foot of this page.
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