The 5 stages of mourning (or about death) by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Get to know the 5 stages of grief by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross through text and an illustrative video that makes understanding easy.

You’ve probably heard that there are five stages to the grief experience. Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was able to identify the psychic reaction of each terminally ill patient and elaborated the five stages of grief.

Mourning is a necessary and fundamental process to fill the void left by any significant loss not only of someone, but also of something important, such as: object, trip, job, idea, etc.

The five stages of grief (or the prospect of death) are:

Phase 1) Denial

It would be a psychic defense that causes the individual to end up denying the problem, trying to find some way of not getting in touch with reality, whether it be the death of a loved one or the loss of a job. It is common for the person not to want to talk about it either.

Phase 2) Anger

At this stage, the individual revolts with the world, feels wronged and does not conform to being going through this.

Phase 3) Bargain

This is the phase in which the individual begins to negotiate, starting with himself, he ends up wanting to say that he will be a better person if he gets out of that situation, he makes promises to God. It’s like the speech “I’m going to be a better person, I’m going to be kinder and nicer to people, I’m going to have a healthy life.”

Phase 4) Depression

Already at this stage, the person withdraws into their internal world, isolating themselves, melancholy and feeling powerless in the face of the situation.

Phase 5) Acceptance

It is the stage in which the individual does not have despair and can see reality as it really is, being ready to face loss or death.

Conclusion

It is important to clarify that there is no sequence of stages of grief, but it is common for people who go through this process to present at least two of these stages. And not necessarily people manage to go through this complete process, some are stagnant in one of the phases I mentioned.

The psychologist’s role is to identify and help the patient think about the stage they are in. The resolution of the stage requires experiencing feelings and thoughts that the individual avoided. The psychologist’s task is to allow the patient to experience grief.

In the cartoon below, with subtitles, we can see the 5 Stages of Mourning (or about death) in a playful way: