Today would have marked the 92nd birthday of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Kubler-Ross was a psychiatrist born in Switzerland, one of a set of triplets. An outspoken young woman, Elizabeth defied the wishes of her parents as well as traditional roles of women and chose a career in medicine.
Dr. Kubler-Ross attended medical school in Zurich, continuing her education here in the U.S. She soon became an outspoken physician, drawn to working with dying patients. In 1969 she published “On Death and Dying”, a groundbreaking publication that outlined 5 stages of emotions that terminally ill patients experience. She went on to publish many other books, and was the recipient of twenty honorary degrees. Dr. Kubler-Ross also taught over 125,000 students, in her own estimation. (http://www.ekrfoundation.org/bio/elisabeth-kubler-ross-biography/)
Kubler-Ross’s work included AIDS patients in the 1980’s, as well as terminally ill children. The 5 Stages of Death and Dying have become the foundation for modern grief and bereavement theories and practices.
Here are the stages that Dr. Kubler-Ross identified:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
While a list of 5 stages might seem simple, moving through the grief associated with death and dying isn’t that easy. Psychiatrists now know that people don’t move the steps in a liner movement, or at the same pace. There’s much more depth to how we grieve.
It’s more like a roller coaster, moving in and out of the steps at our own individual paces. Maybe we skip a step. Maybe we never come to a state of acceptance. Everybody’s grief looks different.
Dr. Kubler-Ross’s greatest gift to the care of the dying was creating an awareness that how we grieve matters. Death events and the grief attached to them are intense.
In hospice nursing we have a saying – “The pain is what the patient says it is.”
The same goes for grief. Grief is the pain that’s real to the individual. It’s not up to someone else to decide how and when you grieve. You get to decide that for yourself.
If you’re interested in learning about grief and grief support, here are some resources that might be helpful:
Needing more information about grief or bereavement care in hospice? Just shoot us an email at host@theheartofhospice for a personal response from Jerry or Helen.