**Although the process is different for everyone, it's possible the majority of people still go through most or all of the stages of grief at some point after a loss, even if it seems they have skipped one or more altogether, and even if, of course, the timeframes for which they go through these stages are infinitely variable case to case.** - Famously, there are [5 stages of grief](https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.grief.html), first described by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Some schools of thought add 2 more in there, to make it: _Shock_, denial, anger, bargaining, _guilt_, depression, and acceptance. - Regardless as to whether there are 5 or 7, I think the interesting debate here is whether, as a generality, the majority of people indeed do go through these stages of grief. - There may be cases where some people never go through one or some of the stages. The question might then be whether they aren't, in fact, still going through them, just in some kind of undetectable way. - Of course, the stages can and do happen in any order, and I'll admit it appears as though not everyone will go through every single one of them. - However, there is the argument that, even if people have radically different timeframes for and experiences with grief, they still go through the stages _at some point and in some way_ after a loss, even if it's many years later or even if it's so diluted or transfigured as to seem like something else entirely. - For example, a loss I personally experienced followed most of the stages, though a few of them were prolonged and I jumped back and forth between many of them: First shock/denial that seemed more like sadness/depression, but then truer depression and acceptance followed by anger, guilt, and bargaining later. Then I cycled back through them. - Only in retrospect did I realize that what I had conceived of as acceptance was actually more just an ignoring of the fact. When I was cycling back through all the stages again, it seemed then like the acceptance had magically disappeared from my narrative, leaving me stranded yet again outside of that important result of the process. - However, I think, with further introspection, the acceptance _had_ still been there, it had just morphed into other things. (In my case it was a type of acceptance that drew on and looked towards abstract states of mind as, at least in part, a viable coping method. Eventually a fuller acceptance pulled through after having hidden away inside of that.) - I think the same morphing can happen with all the other stages, too, but to an extent that it's still possible to identify them as those stages even when they're constantly being displaced and coming up in random places like a game of sliding in and out of wormholes through time. - There is also the question of potentially "abnormal" psychological states such as psychopathy. Do people who display psychopathic tendencies experience grief in all the messy but in my opinion still categorically nameable ways as discussed above? For some people with psychopathic traits, a deep trauma might have the effect of bringing out emotions that were otherwise very repressed. For yet others, they may never be affected by a loss in such a way as to go through any or most of the stages of grief, due to their particular ways of feeling.

**Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model of grief** • In her book, [_On Death and Dying_](https://www.ekrfoundation.org/5-stages-of-grief/on-death-and-dying/), the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross split the experience of grief into 5 stages, devised from her work with terminally ill people. • Denial: When a person receives news of death, they may immediately believe that this is a mistake as part of being in shock. This stage is a [survival tactic](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/denial/art-20047926) that allows your mind time to process distressing information without being overwhelmed. • Anger: Many grieving people feel [frustrated and resentful](https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/talkabout/articles/anger-in-grief/253186) towards themselves, their loved ones, or the deceased person at times. • Bargaining: This stage describes an anxiety around [what could have happened](https://www.joincake.com/blog/bargaining-stage-of-grief/) to avoid the death, or around finding a way to explain it. • Depression: Perhaps the [most common and expected](https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.grief.html) stage of grief – grieving people often feel defeated, hopeless, and sad. • Acceptance: For many, grief never ‘goes away’ but they learn to live with it, and as time goes on, loss becomes [bearable](https://www.washington.edu/counseling/2020/06/08/the-stages-of-grief-accepting-the-unacceptable/). Those in the acceptance stage of grief are able to be mindful of their emotions. • Many argue that these stages are [not necessarily linear](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0030222817691870), and that not everyone experiences every stage. Some argue that there are other stages of grief excluded from Kübler-Ross’s model.

**The '5 stages of grief' model is a framework that can help people to process their emotions healthily. It is not a linear timeline, however, and it is not a set-in-stone description of how humans experience grief.** - In the '5 stages' model, we're basically naming the emotions that humans most commonly feel in the wake of loss — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But when the model was [created] (https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.grief.html) by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the late 1960s, it wasn't tested in any systematic way. She just observed, from her work with terminally ill patients, that certain emotional reactions to grief seemed to be common among them. - Researchers at Yale did [carry out tests] (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130219-are-there-five-stages-of-grief) on the model in the early 2000s. They found that acceptance was the emotion most strongly experienced in the grieving process, while denial was very low. They also found that emotions rarely follow any kind of order — people could experience multiple feelings at once and at different degrees. - Overall — the '5 stages of grief' framework is not verifiably descriptive of the human experience of grief. Sure, it can be helpful in getting people to accept their emotions, and be able to locate and recognise them on a scale that is greater than themselves. But it is also potentially dangerous — because it risks perpetuating the view that there is a 'right' way to grieve. When in reality, each experience of loss will be different, and dependent on many factors; the person experiencing grief, the magnitude of the loss, etc.