Kubler-Rossian Concepts

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

That was a quote by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, the Swiss born American psychiatrist who later became a pioneer in the field of thanatology, the study of death and dying and was also one of the powerful force behind the movement for creating a hospice care system.

Her influential On Death and Dying mapped out a five-stage framework to explain the experience of dying patients, which progressed through denial, anger, “bargaining for time,” depression, and acceptance.

She identified those stages that a dying patient experiences when informed of their terminal prognosis. Not only does a dying person experience this, but also their loved ones.

Denial (this isn't happening to me!) (this isnt happening to my dad!)

Anger (why is this happening to me?) (why is this happening only to our family?)

Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)(If only there was a way out, I would...)

Depression (I don't care anymore) (not even God can save us from this misery!)

Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)(what else to do than accept the fate)

These stages not only apply to death but also for grief due to various etiologies and here we shall apply it to one of the scourges of marital life-divorce-to understand the concept in a better way.

Denial
Surely this isn't happening to me. Surely this isn't happening to us. Even if it's happening, it's just a stage. He's left before; he'll come back. She's talked this way before; she doesn't really mean it. Even if he means it, he'll soon realize the error of his ways, and our marriage will survive. Everything's really okay.

Anger
I'm ready to kill her. I want to hire the meanest, ugliest lawyer I can find and take him for all he's worth. I'm ready to go to war, and I'll beat her to a bloody pulp. I want to see him spread-eagle on a rock and watch the buzzards eat his insides out one bite at a time (that was an actual quote, by the way).

Bargaining
Here's what I'm willing to do. Okay, honey, here's a long letter in which I spell out for you how I've changed. See, I'm different. I've solved all the problems you told me needed to be fixed. You can come back now. I know. I'll give him everything. If you'll give it another chance, I'll . . .

Depression
This is the end. I am nothing. I am so small. I don't think I exist any more. I'm ugly. I'm fat. I don't matter. I think I'll just lie here. I'm worthless. Nobody cares if I live or die. I can't go on. There is no "I" left. He's much better off without me. I can see why she's so glad to get rid of me. I hate myself. This is all my fault.

Acceptance
I don't like this, but it's going to happen, and I need to get through it. I'll make it. Our marriage is ending. We're divorcing. I need to let my marriage go. My wife is leaving. My husband and I won't be together any more. We're getting a divorce. I'm ready for my co-workers, my family, and my friends to know that I'm going through a divorce.

Acceptance is difficult, painful, and curiously, often liberating.

There is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know the ultimate goal is love? …

At these moments you can either hold on to negativity and look for blame, or you can choose to heal and keep on loving. The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.

Death is a great leveller. Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death. Brevity of life is unequivocal and the let us not indulge in "sleep"--the sister of death--but to be awake to listen to the cry of help by our brethren.