Grief Is Not a Process to Get Through

The five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, are among the most widely cited and most widely misapplied ideas in psychology. They have shaped how people expect themselves to grieve, and they have generated enormous guilt and confusion in those whose grief does not follow the prescribed sequence. The evidence tells a different story.

Where the stages model came from

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed her stage model from observations of people facing their own terminal illness, not from people bereaved by the loss of others. The stages were never meant to describe a universal, linear process. Kübler-Ross herself noted that they were not meant to be prescriptive. Despite this, the model became culturally dominant and is routinely misapplied.

The clinical consequence is that people who do not move through stages in order, who skip stages, who revisit stages, or who experience grief differently entirely, often conclude that something is wrong with their grieving. There is not. Grief is highly individual.

What the evidence actually shows

Contemporary grief research, particularly the work of George Bonanno, shows that the most common response to loss in adults is resilience, not pathological grief, not prolonged stages, but a relatively rapid return to normal functioning alongside ongoing experience of loss. This is not suppression or avoidance; it is genuine resilience, and it is more common than the dominant cultural narrative suggests.

The "dual process model" of grief, developed by Stroebe and Schut, describes people oscillating between loss-orientation (focusing on the grief, the person who died, the emotions of loss) and restoration-orientation (rebuilding daily life, adjusting to new roles, moving forward). Both are normal and necessary. Grief is not a linear march toward acceptance; it is a back-and-forth that gradually changes in balance over time.

When grief needs professional support

Prolonged grief disorder, formerly called complicated grief, is distinct from normal grief and is characterised by intense, persistent longing and grief-related distress that remains highly disruptive for an extended period (typically beyond 12 months following a bereavement). It affects a minority of bereaved people but is responsive to specific psychological treatment. If grief remains all-consuming long after a loss, professional support is warranted and effective.