Grieving is an essential part of coping with a significant loss, but it's an individual process. Processing the emotional trauma is a personal journey, and each person has a distinctive manner of handling it. Grief loss experts and authors David Kessler and Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed the most recognized theory of the grief cycle. According to the Kübler-Ross grief model, there are usually five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Denial
Denying the reality of loss is a subconscious defense mechanism that serves to protect us from extreme pain, according to Dr. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Freud posited that the mind is a complex system of three parts: the id, ego and superego, all of which function as a unit to allow, regulate or prevent certain human behavior. Denial, therefore, protects you from being confronted with the anguish of loss that would be otherwise unbearable. Feelings of numbness and shock accompany the denial stage.
Anger
Feeling angry usually occurs after you've processed the reality of your loss. Releasing the anger allows you to express emotions that may come in forms of lashing out or placing unjustifiable blame on those who are close to you. Kübler-Ross and Kessler emphasize the necessity of releasing this emotion, because "underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength, and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss."
Bargaining
Bargaining is an attempt to prevent the loss from taking place by making promises to yourself or your god of what you would sacrifice in order to evade the loss. After the loss has occurred, Kübler-Ross and Kessler say that the bargaining can evolve into a "temporary truce," in which you make promises in hopes that you can "wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream." Feelings of guilt may accompany the bargaining stage with thoughts of what you could have done to prevent the loss or questions of why someone else was the one to die, not you.
Depression
Reflecting on your sadness, pain and emptiness can cause depression. You've exhausted the energy it takes to be angry, and reality of the loss can initiate emotional withdrawal. Isolating yourself from the encouraging thoughts and intentions of friends and family can be a necessary part of realizing the significance of your loss and recognizing how your life is going to change as a result. Feelings of despair and loneliness may come from recalling and replaying memories from the past. Depression is a normal reaction to grief, say Kessler and Kübler-Ross. In fact, they maintain, "to not experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual."
Acceptance
Acceptance doesn't imply that you've recovered from the loss; it means you have acknowledged you must cope with life without whatever or whomever you've lost and move forward with what you have in the present. Learning to adjust to the new reality is difficult and can take time, but Kessler and Kübler-Ross say that "in time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to reorganize roles, reassign them to others or take them on ourselves."
