Many authors and grief workers have defined stages of grief. More specifically, many have identified five stages of grief. Based on a misunderstanding of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages, grief counselors and others have transferred those five stages to grief. In her book, “On Death and Dying”, Kubler-Ross presents five stages that a terminally ill person goes though from the first time they heard the diagnosis was terminal until the last stage of acceptance. These stages are identified in her book as “coping mechanisms” for the terminally ill patient. Her study was narrow and was centered on male patients within a certain age group. These five stages are narrowed to the five stages of coping with being told you have a terminal illness. Those stages are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

The basic assumption of the five stages of grief is that there is an orderly progression of emotions that one goes through to resolve grief. Grief is far to complex to resolve. Grief is exclusively individual. Everyone reacts differently to grief. What generally happens to people who think they must go through five stages of grief is confusion. What if the griever does not feel they have experienced one or more stages (which is very common)? Should they seek professional counseling? Are they going crazy? How discouraging to be stuck and not working your grief out to a satisfactory resolution.

We need to have a solid working, practical and true definition of grief. I have heard, read and studied many definitions but there is one that comes from several unrelated sources that makes the most sense to me. Grief is our reaction to a loss of any kind. Grief is our response to change in a familiar pattern or relationship. Therefor, the three key and foundational elements are: change, loss and grief.

This year (2007) new research confirmed that there are stages of grief. The Center of Psyco-Oncology and Palliative Care Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston released the study. 233 adults living in Connecticut who had recently lost a loved on to death participated in the study. They were interviewed at 6, 11 and 20 months after the death of the loved one. The researchers devised a scale of specific emotions tied to the stages of grief they believed exist and asked the participant to rate the intensity of the emotion at those intervals. The conclusion was that at about by the 20th month all the negative emotional indicators had significantly declined. Significant declines were noted at six months. The study accepted the five stages of grief and was set up to quantify them in a scientific study. One may conclude that grievers go through set stages and that they will get over the loss in time.

Again, what harm does this conclusion cause the average, normal griever? Not every griever feels the stages defined in the study which are: “disbelief, yearning, anger, depression and acceptance.” Not every griever will tell you they have come to acceptance. Not every griever experiences anger either. Can you see how confusing this can be if you are grieving a major loss and expecting to be going through these (or any other) stages of grief? It is very possible that grieving never ends, it may get better, but it never ends. Another question we need to ask ourselves is how do we define “acceptance”? I am not talking about a clinical definition because we do not live our lives based on clinical definitions. How does the griever define acceptance, or do we ever feel we can accept a loss? I can agree that it happened but is that acceptance?

Most, if not all, grievers will tell you they do not go through any kind of an orderly process in grieving (no stages). They will tell you they feel a wide range of emotions with various intensities at various times. No two grievers will share the exact same experiences even if they both lost the same loved one. Two sisters whose mother just died will have different responses to the loss because they each had a unique relationship with their mother. The kind of unique relationship we have had with the loved one we lost will play a major role in how we respond. Since the relationship is unique the emotions we feel will be unique.

Grief is about loss and change. We can experience grief from at least 40 different losses or changes in our lives from moving to a unfamiliar location, a new job, health issues, pets who die, financial issues, and many more. Every loss produces change in a familiar routine or relationship and due to the change we feel grief. There are no stages to go through, in my opinion. You can learn to be better, to complete the incomplete and to move on with your life in a fulfilled way. Recovery from loss (grief) is possible with the correct information and the correct series of steps. Try the Grief-Recovery Outreach Program in your area sponsored by the Grief-Recovery Institute and you will recover from your loss.