The Five Stages of Grief and Loss in “On Death and Dying”

Healthy Grief
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Institution
Introduction
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross defined the five stages of grief and loss in her 1969 book called “On Death and Dying”. Dr. Kübler-Ross in her book carefully remarks that not all people experience all the five stages she presents or experiences them in the order presented. This paper is a review of the story of Job in light of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s theory of the 5 stages of grief to determine the stages that Job experiences.
Denial
Denial according to Kübler-Ross means the refusal to accept the situations at hand either consciously or unconsciously. After the diagnosis of a terminal disease, a person undergoes various changes. Kubler-Ross describes the significant changes that a person goes through. She states that the first reaction that one experiences is shock and denial. Kubler-Ross says that a dying person is not willing to admit that he is dying and may even sham his illness to be trivial. In the context of Job, this article relates how Job went through this phase of grief after receiving the tragic news from the messengers that he had lost his children and possessions.
Relating to the story of job there seems to be no direct indication of denial (Kubler-Ross, 1969). When the loss happens Job acknowledges that that everything comes from the Lord and that He came naked and naked will he return to Him (Janzen, 2012). He does a short stance of mourning in terms of wearing sack clothes and grief with his friends for two weeks, but no place demonstrates that he was in denial. However, the rest of the book indicates that Job has not really integrated of accepted the situation. Job portrays a form of faith, but we can refer to this as a blind faith where job believes that God is able to do everything, but he does admit or integrate the hurt in his life (Kubler-Ross, 1975).
Anger
After a patient has gone through denial, Kubler-Ross describes that a person will then start to experience feelings of internal conflict, guilt, and loneliness (Kubler-Ross 1975:161). He then notes that these emotions turns into ager where the person shifts blames to others for his hurt or the approaching death. This is consistent with Jobs experiences after the visit of his three friends.
The actual process of grief for job is seen from the end of chapter 2 when his friends sat with him in silence for seven days and nights. This withdrawal is Kübler-Ross’s feature of loneliness. This loneliness turns into anger when job finally speaks because we see him cursing both the day and night he was conceived and born. After a moment of loneliness for two weeks with his friends, Job finally speaks and portrays the anger. He directs his anger to his mother Job 3:12, then shifts it to his friends accusing them of misunderstanding him Job 6:4-15, and finally turns his anger to God accusing him of injustice Job 33: 10 as a way of relief for his sufferings (Janzen, 2012).
Bargaining
After the patient has blamed the doctors for their inabilities and God, the person realizes that he or she still needs their intervention to help him survive or d...