Five Major Experiences on the Grieving Process

Healthy Grief
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Healthy Grief
Kubler Ross discusses five major experiences upon bereavement. The most common experiences that one goes through include denial and the eventual acceptance. People also experience anger, bargaining, and depression in no particular order. The experiences are steps in the grieving process that enable one to come to terms with the reality about end of life. Ross however indicates that one may or may not go through all the steps and that it is common for people to transition back and forth through the different experiences (Lim, 2013). In the denial stage, one is in a state of shock and is often unable to conceive reality of the loss. The unbelief is fundamental in assisting one from becoming overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and helplessness. Anger sets in when one accepts the reality that indeed their loved one is dead. It is characterized by feelings of resentment towards those involved in any way with the cause of death, towards oneself and sometimes towards the deceased. One may have questions that seek to understand reasons for the death.
The bargaining experience is a thought distortion that where the bereaved may appeal to a higher power to in a bid to postpone death or resurrect the deceased. In the case of anticipated death, bargaining is a state of desperation where one may ask God to prolong one’s life if one promises to serve the poor. Bargaining is often an impractical experience that does not bear the intended result of postponing death. Depression is a state of extreme sadness, helplessness and despair. One may withdraw from others and experience suicidal thoughts. One may also experience a lapse in appetite and zeal for life. Acceptance is the stage where one actualizes that humans are mortal and death is inevitable. It is the stage where one relieves himself of personal blame for the death and begins to experience a detachment from the deceased. For those in near death situations, it may also involve actions such as writing a will or saying the last words to members of the family in preparation for death (Conroy, O'leary, & Anne, 2014).
The story of job presents a man that faces catastrophic loss of his wealth health and children. The loss takes a toll on his spiritual, financial and emotional state. In the first chapter, he worships God as a way of numbing himself to prevent himself from getting overwhelmed. As an indication of denial, he also says that that the children were God’s meaning that God was right to take his own. In Chapter seven Job is angry as he says that he is bitter in his soul because of losing his children and the skin disease that had befallen him. Job bargains with God to take away his suffering in chapter 9 to appeal to God to lift off his suffering. He indicates that he did not deserve to suffer as he had lived a life that was beyond reproach. Job is evidently depressed by the fact that he isolated himself from his friends and refused to talk to them for seven days in Job chapte...