The 5 stages of grief (when a relative dies)

The loss of someone you love is one of the experiences that produces the most psychological pain. However, within this class of painful experiences there are nuances, different ways of experiencing grief both emotionally and cognitively.

This idea is the one developed by the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her theory of the 5 stages of grief, published in 1969 in the book On death and dying ". This idea helps to better understand the way people feel in the duel and how they tend to act.

The Elisabeth Kübler-Ross model

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist born in 1926 who specialized in palliative care and in near-death situations. After working for years in contact with terminally ill patients, she developed the famous Kübler-Ross model in which she establishes 5 stages of grief.

Although the name of this theory may seem to indicate otherwise, Kübler-Ross did not conclude that After the death of a loved one, it goes through five phases that always follow one another in order, so sequential.

What this researcher did was, rather, define five mental states that act as a reference to understand how it goes producing the evolution of the mourner, from the moment in which he knows that his loved one has died until he accepts this new situation.

This means that not all people in the grieving phase have to go through all 5 stages., and that those that go through do not always appear in the same order. However, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross considered that these stages were useful as a category system to be able to conceptualize a relatively simple way all the nuances of the way in which grief is managed, a phase that in some cases is expressed through the emotional lability.

The 5 stages of grief

In summary, the 5 stages of grief after the death of someone you love are described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross as follows.

1. Denial stage

The fact of denying the reality that someone is no longer with us because he has died allows to cushion the blow and postpone part of the pain that this news produces. Although it seems an unrealistic option, it has its usefulness for our body, since it helps to prevent the change in mood from being so sudden that it harms us.

The denial can be explicit or not explicit, that is, although we express ourselves verbally accepting the information that the loved one has dead, in practice we behave as if that were a transitory fiction, that is, a role that we have to interpret without our believing it. everything.

In other cases, the denial is explicit, and the possibility that death has occurred is directly denied.

Denial cannot be sustained indefinitely, because it collides with the reality that has not yet been fully accepted, so we end up abandoning this stage.

2. Stage of anger

Anger and resentment that appear at this stage are the result of frustration that produces knowing that death has occurred and that nothing can be done to fix or reverse the situation.

Grief produces a deep sadness that we know cannot be alleviated by acting on its cause, because death is not reversible. What's more, death is perceived as the result of a decision, and therefore guilty is sought. Thus, in this phase of the crisis, what dominates is disruption, the clash of two ideas (that life is desirable and that death is inevitable) with a very strong emotional charge, so it is easy for outbursts of go to.

Thus, that is why a strong feeling of anger appears that is projected in all directions, by not neither a solution nor someone can be found who can be fully held accountable for the death.

Although a part of us knows that it is unfair, anger is directed against people who are not to blame for anything, or even against animals and objects.

3. Negotiation stage

In this stage we try to create a fiction that allows us to see death as a possibility that we are in a position to prevent from happening. Somehow, offers the fantasy of being in control of the situation.

In negotiation, which can occur before or after death, we fantasize about reversing the process and seek strategies to make that possible. For example, it is common to try to negotiate with divine or supernatural entities to prevent death from occurring in exchange for lifestyle changes and "reform."

In the same way, pain is alleviated by imagining that we have gone back in time and that no life is in danger. But this stage is brief because it does not fit with reality either and, in addition, it is exhausting to be thinking all the time about solutions.

4. Stage of depression

In the stage of depression (which is not itself the type of depression that is considered a mental disorder, but a set of similar symptoms), we stop fantasizing about parallel realities and return to the present with a deep sense of emptiness because the loved one is no longer there.

Here a strong sadness appears that cannot be mitigated by excuses or by imagination, and that leads us to enter a existential crisis when considering the irreversibility of death and the lack of incentives to continue living in a reality in which the loved one is not. In other words, not only do you have to learn to accept that the other person has left, but you also have to start living in a reality that is defined by that absence.

At this stage it is normal for us to isolate ourselves more and feel more tired, unable to conceive the idea that we are going to get out of that state of sadness and melancholy.

5. Acceptance stage

It is at the moment in which the death of the loved one is accepted when one learns to continue living in a world in which he is no longer, and it is accepted that this feeling of improvement is fine. In part, this phase occurs because the trace that the emotional pain of the duel is extinguishing with the time, but it is also necessary to actively reorganize the very ideas that make up our scheme mental.

It is not a happy stage in contrast to the rest of the stages of grief, but at the beginning it is characterized rather by the lack of intense feelings and by fatigue. Little by little the ability to experience joy and pleasure returns, and from that situation things usually return to normal.

A cycle to feel better

As we have seen, grief can take many forms, causing the feeling of loss to gradually transform as our way of experiencing that experience matures. The key is in the way we learn to live with the idea that what we loved will no longer be present, be it a person, an object or a part of our own body.

To overcome these losses, we initially they are usually felt through a sense of hopelessness and unease, we must come to assume that from that moment on we will have to live in a different world, one in which what we long for is no longer there.

Eventually, it is possible to reconcile with this reality and move on while maintaining mental health. balanced and healthy, either having resorted to psychotherapy or not having done so, in case you have not done lack. Virtually no event is terrible enough that we can't get over it one way or another, putting in the effort and spending time on it. Empirical evidence shows that in the vast majority of cases there is a mental recovery after intensely painful events such as the death of a loved one.

Bibliographic references:

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• Bayés, R. (2001). Psychology of suffering and death. Martínez Roca editions.
• Kübler-Ross, E. (1992) Children and death. Luciérnaga Editions. Barcelona.
• Lee, C. (1995) The death of loved ones. Plaza & Janés Editores. Barcelona.
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