5 Stages
Kylie Edwards
Denial-We Grieve in Stages: In 2007, found that most people have accepted the death of their loved ones
from the very beginning. The people feel
more yearning for their loved ones than anger or depression.
Anger-Express It; Don't Repress It: In a 2007, study of 66 people who had recently lost a spouse or child, who didn't express their emotions for six months after their
loss was less depressing and anxious and had fewer health complaints at
14 and 25 months than those who did express their emotions.
Bargaining-Grief Is Harder on Women: In 2001, Someone studied the measure
of who suffers more, men or women. The studies had to meet
one of two conditions: widows and widowers who was compared with a
control group of married men and women. They had to be
evaluated before the loss of their spouse to establish a baseline of
their mental health.
Depression-Grief Never Ends: 205 elderly people had a spouse die and the largest
group was about 45% of the participants. They showed no signs of shock,
despair, anxiety or intrusive thoughts six months after their loss.
Some of the subjects were screened for classic symptoms of depression, such as
lethargy, sleeplessness, joylessness and appetite problems, and came up
clean. About 15% of the participants in Bonanno's study were still having some
problems at 18 months. This small minority might be suffering from a
syndrome clinicians call Prolonged Grief Disorder. Most
people respond to loss with resilience, which is often mischaracterized
as pathological or delayed grief.
Acceptance-Counseling Helps: With about a year of counseling after a loved one's death is mandated by federal legislation passed in 1982. The practice was likely popularized before there was
enough solid research on normal grief to base it upon. And while
counseling may have enriched a few of its practitioners, its propagation
was driven more by ideology than money.
