...Running head: STAGES OF GRIEF 1 Healthy Grieving: A Comparative Analysis Author Grand Canyon University: HLT 310 Summer 19, 2016 2 HEALTHY GRIEVING: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Stages of Grief Introduction Here in this essay we examine the stages of grief as defined by the renowned thanatologist Elizabeth KüblerRoss. In conjunction with this review of grief we will consider the work of Nicholas Wollsterstorff in his epic Lament for a Son, written to express his still lingering grief at the loss of his son Eric, who tragically fell to his death while mountainclimbing at the age of 25. As we study the process of grief, one must bear in mind that for people suffering grief a range of emotions will come to the forefront"disbelief, sadness, anger, guilt, and selfreproach, panic, anxiety, loneliness, listlessness, and apathy, shock, yearning, numbness, depersonalization" (Bruce 2007) . Also, one must remember that grief is a natural response to losing a loved one. While looking at grief’s lingering effects, we will also discover how Wolsterstorff managed to find meaning, even joy, after the loss of his son. Stages of the Grieving Process All people experience grief and mourn at the loss of a loved oneit is a universal experience. To understand the grieving process better, it helps to focus on the five stages of grief as proposed by KüblerRoss in response to ...
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...The five stages of grief have evolved since their introduction. The five stages are not linear; neither are they equal in their experience. There is no such thing as a typical loss therefore there is no typical response to loss. Over the past three decades they have been very misunderstood. People grieve; their grief and other reactions to emotional trauma are as individual as a fingerprint and are specific to each individual. There is no prescribed order, nor does everyone go through all the stages. There is no posted timeline for grief that states you should be at this stage at this point and time. These stages are to help us form and identify what we may be feeling. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live without the one we lost. With these stages comes the knowledge that help in making us better equipped to cope with life and loss. Denial This first stage of grieving helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask...
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...Healthy Grief: Kubler-Ross Grieving Process and Stages of Grief Alice Verrett Grand Canyon University: HLT 310v June 16, 2013 Kubler-Ross Grieving Process and Stages of Grief We are examining the grief process and the stages of grief by evaluating and distinguishing differences, or similarities of Kubler-Ross, Job of the Bible, and Hinduism. We also looked at a connection and interplay linking joy, the grief process, and its stages we will also look at personal means of dealing with the grief process and whether or not it merits change. Kubler-Ross acknowledges; {People in some aspect of time in life will grieve over the loss of someone or something of importance in their lifetime.} We cannot forget about them. People will deny the grief process to avert pain but it will be much healthier for us to accept the loss as we journey through the grief process. Kubler-Ross says; “The grief process follows a normal sequence of deny, rage, trying to negotiate, a depressed state, and finally acquiescence”. (Kübler-Ross, 1969). Kubler-Ross five stages of grief: 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining 4) Depression, 5) Acceptance.. A model proposed by Stroebe and Schut is also in place and utilized. The grief model used today is a two track process model. The first track looks at loss (separation distress), while the second track looks at re-establishment of means (the progression of opportunities in which to maintain living on one’s own). (Stroebe and...
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...Stages of Grief Human is made of different emotions. It is impossible to live social life without emotions inhuman. Human often identifies negative and positive emotions. Happiness, joy and laughter are considered as positive emotions where anger, grief and pain are consider as negative emotions. Sometimes we do not realize that negative emotions can also guide us towards positive event in life. In Lament for a son authors replications are similar with this theory. These great thinker studies the death of Eric by indirectly explaining the five stages of grief. Wolterstorff experiences the pain and finds that no one can take his son place, but it is up to living family members how they can agree on death reality. His argument shows journey of suffering father changed to acquiescent person who accepts that endless knowledge and thinks that almighty does everything for a reason and individual must accept to understand life in better way. Before understanding dilemma of Wolterstorff and his idea about anguish, it is significant to analyzed and recognize five stages of grief which are described by Ross in a book of Death and Dying. Every individual passes through thru grieving stages during their life time but it is might not happened in same order of stages as describe by Ross. In the beginning, death of close loved one creates misbelief from reality, which is considered as denial and isolation stage according author Ross. Knowing the truth that the reality will give them...
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...2015 Stages of Grief There are five stages of grief that a person goes through when a loved one passes away. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, we all go through these at our own pace and in our own way. In the written “Lament for a Son” we will go through the journey of a father’s loss of his son and how he goes through the stages of grief (Wolterstorff, 1987). Denial and isolation is the first stage of grief, in lament for a son it does not specifically discuss that he goes through specific denial. Denial is the first reaction most people have when learning of the death of a loved one (Axelrod, 2014). A person will just hear part of what the person is saying when they are being informed that a loved one as died, especially in an untimely death such as the one we read about a 25 year old dying while mountain climbing. This is usually the most temporary stage. Anger is the second stage and this when reality usually sets in and the pain and intense emotions arise (Grand Canyon University, 2015). Sometimes the anger is directed and the one who died sometimes it is at us for not spending enough time with the person who passed away. Some of the anger that was discussed was with how people try to console you, when they say “it’s really not so bad” or “I know how you are feeling (Wolterstorff, 1987).” Death is really that bad and there is no way anyone could know how another person is feeling in their own grief. Bargaining is the third stage of grief; this...
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...Stags of Grief Grand Canyon University HLT-310V Spirituality in Health Care Xochitl Harris July 17, 2016 Stages of Grief In our lifetime at one point or another we will experience grief. We may grief a loss of a loved one, a pet, a relationship, a friendship. Grieving after a loss can come at anytime after the loss happened. Some times grieving may take some time to sink in. It may start six months after. Everyone grieves differently and at different times. A person has his or her own way of grieving and dealing with loss. Its important to understand the process of grieving. It will help understand what one is going through emotionally so that one can help someone going through this process. The five stages of grief are identified in this paper by analyzing the book “Lament for a Son” and how the author found joy after his loss (Wolterstorff, 1987). The author of this paper will also identify and explore the meaning and significance of death in the light of the Christian narrative, and how the hope of resurrection plays a role in comforting the author. Five Stages of Grief Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, the five stages of grief that one goes through after a loss significant to them are identified by Dr. Kubler-Ross. Every individual grief’s in his or her own way. There is no particular other to follow in the stages. One will experience one or the other, or may start all over again and repeat a stage. To grief is to come to terms with...
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...Every person at some point in their life is bound to experience loss and grief at some point. Grief is a deep, inevitable sorrow that most often follows the death of a loved one. Grief changes a person emotionally, cognitively and physically. The process of dealing with grief is broken up into five areas: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. We use these five stages as tools to help us identify and deal with the pain of living life with the loss of a loved one. When we lose someone or something that we care for deeply, we are not sure how to go about dealing with it. We are unable to accept the loss at first, so we find ourselves stuck in the first stage of grief: denial. Denial is most often the first stage of dealing with...
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...The Three Stages Of Grief Grief is an emotion that we all experience in one point of our lives. It is sparingly, complex and found hard to overcome. There are three stages to the process of grieving. Each consist of denial, anger, and depression. Individuals say that if you get stuck in one stage you are not done yet the process of grieving. In Alice Sebold’s novel “The Lovely Bones,” characters Lindsey, Jack, and Abigail all go through these stages when Susie Salmon is raped and murdered. The first character who goes through the three stages is Lindsey who has a very distinct way of going through the stages. The next character that proceeds throughout the stages is Jack who grieves immensely. Finally Abigail, who distances herself from her family to complete her process of grieving. In this novel each character proves that after someone dies it is crucial to go through the three stages of grief in order to move on with life. To begin, Lindsey is the first character to experience the three stages of grief. Lindsey suffers a lot and correspondingly goes through the three stages of grief; the first stage being denial. When Lindsey returns to her school her principal Mr.Caden brings her into his office and sympathizes for her situation. Lindsey becomes angry and remarks. “ I wasn’t aware I had lost anything” (Sebold 33). This shows that Lindsey is still in denial. She is still not ready to expect the fact that her sister is now gone forever. However she is now on the road to...
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...The First Stages of Grief The death of a loved one can cause people to become severely depressed. Everyone goes through a grieving process. Healing comes gradually and at different stages through the grieving process and will last differently for everyone. The Five stages of Grief are, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then finally acceptance. The first stage of grief is denial. Denial is a period of time where the person will simply deny that the death of a loved one has occurred. This stage does not last long though. It occurs as soon as the news has been given to them that their loved one has passed. Most of the time this first stage of grief will only last about two weeks or so. After the first two weeks, you may or may not go into the second stage, Anger. Anger is the period of time that the person will be/feel angry with themselves for any past mistakes they made with the deceased. They may also become angry with the deceased for leaving as well. The anger may last for two to four weeks, but is different with everyone. Some may not even go through this stage and skip right to the third stage or the ending stage....
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...Working in the funeral industry and having to deal with grief myself I have had the opportunity to notice that each person deals with grief in their own unique way. There are the five stages of grief. Firstly, Denial&Isolation this is often recognized as a defence mechanism that covers over the shock of death. You see this in the process of arranging the funeral. It isn't until those few weeks are over when all the family and friends get back to work and you are alone that you start to enter into the second stage of grief anger, this is sometimes pointed to the person who's live has been taken and although we know it that person is not to be blamed our emotions take over and we assume it was their choice to go.The third stage of grief comes into play bargaining is trying to find a solution for why this happened, “ If only we didn't go down that road in the rain” or “ If only we went to see a doctor sooner” this is where we try to regain control of the situation....
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...Running head: STAGES OF GRIEF Stages of Grief Delores Clayton Grand Canyon University Religious in Health Care HLT-310V Gary Shields August 22, 2015 In this essay I will be completing my report from the book “Lament for a Son” not only written but also lived by Nicholas WolterstorffIn. In this book the author/character talks about his painful recollection and how his life has changed since his son that was 25 year old has pass away from a climbing accident in Austria. While reading the book I was able to transcribe how the author exhibited the different stages of grief which he is was experiencing. Toward the end of the book and where author was able to find peace through the faith he had in God. Nicholas the author account of the occurrence and grief-stricken is upright and stunningly written. I feel that he had written the book true character and stories to motivate others who is experiencing loss. There is five stages of grief that is expressed in telling his life story, they signify how the stages help lead the author to find joy after his loss. The author was able to explain the allusion and connivance of death in light of the Christian description and how the hope of the reappearance/ return to life, played a role in consoling Wolterstorff. This story started off with the author receiving a phone call, in regards to his son Erick falling to his death. He immediately heads to where his son resided so that he can claim Eric's his sons body, after arriving where...
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...First the denial phase, where the person cannot believe that something like that will happen to them. Next is the anger phase, where our body and mind still is not ready to process the loss, and reacts with anger at just about anything, including the lost loved one. Then there’s the bargaining phase, which includes things like, “if only I had been there.” Then there is the depression phase, and the acceptance phase. But in situations that mainly involve murder, the person going through these five stages of grief will not make it out of the anger phase without feeling a need to enact revenge. But this is dangerous. It fuels anger. It clouds vision. By now, morals go down the drain, and the mind believes that revenge is what is going to get them out of their depression and grief. But it does not allow them to escape the grief. It just causes a whole new cycle of...
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...We all go through some sort of tragedy at one point in our lives. Me, I lost a dear friend and a wonderful teacher. The person I lost goes by the name Jon Sokoloff who was a great person at heart and tried to make people laugh any chance he got using sarcastic lines or rhetorical statements. I didn’t know what it was like to lose someone that I was close to until that fateful, Saturday morning April 25th 2015 when I was at a friend’s house and I got that heart-retching call from my mother. I am going to tell you all about this and more but first I need to take you through the five stages of Grief. The first stage I am going to explain to you is Denial. When we lose someone, we instantly go into a state where all phenomena declared never occurred...
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...Grief has shocked unprepared people throughout the entirety of human history because with life, comes the inevitable death. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross devised a system to categorize the unpredictable emotions spurred by loss, placing them into one of five stages of grief. Though her five stages have helped people with lost loved one put a name to their volatile mood-swings, the stigma around grief continues to propagate in today’s society. Especially controversial is the concept of self pity, which is denounced as psychological weakness and self-absorption by a modern society. Joan Didion, however, advocates a different perspective, arguing that self-pity naturally accompanies grief, highlighting society’s unjustified absorption with some intangible...
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...CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Grief was not a subject of scholarly attention until recently. Although assumed to be experienced since the beginnings of human attachments and separations, Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was the first one to make a thorough study of grief and loss. His early paper “Mourning and Melancholia”, published in 1917, is regarded as a classic text on bereavement (Mallon, 2008). He contributed the idea that grief is not “pathological” and that grief occurs not only for the loss of a loved one but also for things, values, and statuses (Walter & McCoyd, 2009). Since then, the study of grief had been popularized. More experts have specialized in the field and more publications regarding death and grief were released. Kübler-Ross, Doka, Bowlby, and Worden are just few names who had pioneered the study of grief and other related studies. And in fact, a new field of science had been found which includes the study of grief; that is thanatology. Indeed, the study of grief was granted what academic interest it had been lacking before. The sudden spurt of studies in this field has certainly increased people’s understanding of grief in certain aspects. But it is ironic that despite being a subject of thorough research, the experience of grief remains more or less a vague occurrence which people has to go through at some point in their lives. Attempts had been made in defining grief but the definitions given by different theorists still vary to...
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