On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss Reviews

• 
  Amanda

  How to review the first book you picked up after losing your 58-year-old father suddenly and unexpectedly to a heart attack? Normally I take a very academic approach to my books reviews (or at least I try to). I can’t review this one that way. I certainly wasn’t in an academic frame of mind when I was reading it. I wasn’t anywhere near my normal frame of mind. So instead, I’ll tell you about my experience reading it.
  
  I found out my father was dead at 7am on a Thursday. I knew my father had been taken to the hospital the night before. My brother, who lives near where my father did, called me to let me know. But he also called me with an update that my father was stabilized. Neither of us was very worried, because my dad suffered from heart disease for eleven years and had been hospitalized periodically. He had a pacemaker. He was on medication. He had a specialist who did his long-term care. The ER was confident in his stability. They sent my brother home. My brother called me and told me to go to sleep. I did. He called me again about an hour later and left a voicemail telling me to call him back. I knew from the voicemail what he was going to tell me. I just knew it. I think I knew it the night before when I went to bed too. Because in spite of being told repeatedly that my dad was going to be fine, I cried myself to sleep that night. My brother, when I called him back, told me that my father had gone into cardiac arrest when they were moving him from the ER to a more specialized heart hospital. In spite of being in an ambulance surrounded by health care workers, the heart attack won.
  
  In any case, the instant I heard the voicemail, I went numb. I woke my husband and told him. I called my workplace. I sent off certain work emails to pass off tasks to others to cover. I texted my friends. Then I sat on our bed and I felt….nothing. I was in a complete and total state of shock, I know now. Largely thanks to this book.
  
  Late that night, when I found it was utterly impossible for me to sleep and was certain I would never sleep again, I reached out to the same thing I’ve always reached out to my entire life: books. I opened my laptop and logged in to the Boston Public Library’s ebooks search. I did not have the ability to go off looking for a print book at a branch. I needed help now. In the middle of the night.
  
  I searched the catalog for “grief,” and got a list of…I dunno, a few books. This one was the most scientific. The rest were quite religious, and while that’s fine for other people, that’s not what comforts me. So I downloaded this, and I started to read it. And I instantly started to feel less like there was something wrong with me.
  
  I learned that it’s entirely normal to go into shock at first. To not feel much of anything. It’s your body protecting you, letting the emotions in a little at a time, as you can handle them, so you will stay safe. And indeed, that night, after the first 12 hours of knowing, I sobbed in my husband’s arms. Thanks to this book, I knew that the numbness could come and go. In fact, the most helpful thing I learned in this book was that the 5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) don’t come in order necessarily, and they’re not neat. You don’t move through them in an orderly fashion. You may be angry one day, depressed the next, in denial another, and feel ok and accepting for a bit, then right back to depression. And that’s normal and ok.
  
  I also learned, which was really important for me to know, that the stage of anger can sometimes express itself as guilt, which is just anger turned inward. Some people are more likely to turn their anger inward, and I am definitely one of them. Knowing this was where my (irrational) guilt was coming from (god knows I couldn’t possibly have saved my father from a heart attack from hundreds of miles away) made it much easier for me to cope with the feelings when they did come up.
  
  There were other particular things that the book predicted might happen that kept me from getting freaked out when they did. For instance, I periodically was certain my phone had buzzed with a text message from my father. So certain, in fact, that I picked it up to check. Twice I thought I saw my dad on the street. Both of these I may have been concerned were abnormal, but the book reassured me these “ghost sightings” are totally normal. It’s your body and brain readjusting to your new reality.
  
  The book also gave me warnings about things to come. Things like how the first holidays without the person or the person’s birthday would be difficult. So I knew to expect that and prepared myself for it. It also talked about being patient with yourself in things like dealing with the loved one’s possessions. Not to rush yourself, that it’s ok to take a little bit of time. There were also warnings about how quickly the person’s scent will fade that meant I took the time to really smell a couple of my dad’s tshirts, because I knew the scent would be one of the first things to go.
  
  There is a “specific circumstances” section that talks about things like multiple losses simultaneously or suicide. I wish this section had a bit more on various other special circumstances. For instance, I had just gotten married 7 weeks before, and then my father died. I would have loved a section talking about the juxtaposition of such happiness with such sadness, and how to handle the emotions of things like your first married Thanksgiving (so happy!) also being your first Thanksgiving without your father.
  
  Overall, this book gave me guidance of what to expect from my grief in the immediate time after the loss, as well as in the first year. It mostly contains universal information that will be helpful to anyone going through a loss. If you are a person who finds comfort in books or science, you will find comfort in this read. If you love someone who has recently lost a loved one, reading this will help you to know what behavior from them is normal and guide you in supporting them and validating them through the experience.
  
  Check out my
  full review.
  
  *If you found this review helpful, please consider checking out my
  store of digital items including book club guides, or you can
  buy me a coffee.*
• 
  Laura

  This book served to be my guide to surviving my mother's death without feeling alone, misunderstood, helpless, or -worse- hopeless. This book has validated all the emotions I've felt in my devastating loss by seeing life and death, love and grief through almost every perspective.
  
  "On Grief and Grieving" defines all five stages of loss (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), while also addressing and defining grief from a variety of perspectives (when a person dies from suicide, accidents, murder, Alzheimer's, and many other conditions and actions.) Further, this book explains that many experiences other than death deserve the grieving process and mourning, such as divorces, job losses, or any other large, life impacting, negative event.
  
  Of course this isn't to imply that "On Grief and Grieving" suggests a person live life as a pessimist, relishing in sad thoughts, but rather this book insists that we fight the endless cultural cues to minimize our grief by "being strong" or "bucking up."
  
  Kubler-Ross and Kessler demand that we recognize how validating grief is to our mental health, work through it at our own paces without focusing on an end, because grief is not a process. They write, "Grief is not just a series of events, stages or time lines. Our society places enormous pressure on us to get over loss, to get through the grief. But how long do you grieve for a husband of fifty years, a teenager killed in a car accident, a four-year-old child: a year? five years? forever? The loss happens in time, in fact in a moment, but it's aftermath lasts a lifetime."
  
  Therefore, do not limit your grief, do not pressure yourself to limit your grief, nor should you ever deny your grief. "To deny grief," according to this book, "is to deny the love" you shared with the one you lost. To deny your grief, is to deny the love that was shared in a lost marriage.
  
  As the author's write in "On Grief and Grieving", "Why grieve? For two reasons. First those who grieve well, live well. Second, and most important, grief is the healing process of the heart, soul, and mind; it is the path that returns us to whole-ness."
  
  And ultimately, through proper grieving you will realize that you will survive and eventually again find happiness.
• 
  Otis Chandler

  I hope I don't need this book for a long time, but saving this for when I do, as was recommended here:
  https://tim.blog/2022/03/09/matt-mull...
• 
  Ugnė Lukošienė

  Gaila, jog šios knygos neatradau tada, kai nieko nežinojau apie gedėjimą ir visas stadijas. Dabar jau žinau daugiau nei reikia, gal todėl man ji lyg pradžiamokslis į netekties išgyvenimus. Bet patiko. Norėsiu paskaityti ir daugiau šios autorės knygų.
• 
  Furrawn

  I am dealing with a super difficult situation including the death of my mom. I’m struggling quite a bit as there is grieving my mom being gone, but there are also circumstances regarding how she died that are devastating. This book helped.
  
  If you are grieving, even if you’ve grieved before, this book might help. It will walk you through stages you probably already know, but reading it somehow makes it feel better. There are insights in the book that will probably help you regardless of what grief path you’re trodding.
• 
  Amber

  I "really liked" this book as much as you can about a book on loss and grief. I highly recommend it for anyone who is going through grief because of losing a loved one.
  
  I was really reading this to familiarize myself with what a close friend is going through at the moment, but found that it was quite insightful for me, as someone who has also experienced the loss of loved ones. It made me see myself as someone who wasn't totally crazy at the time of my grief. I also realized that someone could be experiencing loss not JUST because someone has DIED. But losing a close relationship in general can oftentimes push us into stages of grief.
  
  The authors of this book seem very level-headed and not stuck on the idea of medicating and "moving on" so quickly. They encourage the idea of "feeling"--something that is so often lost in today's society. They do not try to shove some religious view down your throat, but at the same time have you consider those moments of experiencing a supernatural occurrence as one to think about, process, and decide how it makes you FEEL, rather than if it was "real" or not.
  
  The idea that one of the very authors died during the writing of this book, makes it that much more "believable" and certainly close to home for the reader.
  
• 
  Leonard

  A powerful guide to grieviElizabeth Kubler-Ross applies the Five Stages model from her book On Death and Dying to grieving. Those who grieve while a loved one is dying or afterwards also struggle with denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. While she confronts her own death, Ms. Kubler-Ross, together with co-author David Kessler, shares the inner and outer worlds of grief. For those who have grieved, some and perhaps many of the issues are familiar. We may be emotionally drained; we may feel relieved to see our loved one no longer suffering but then guilt may overwhelm us. During anniversaries and holidays, we would be especially pained. The book helps us grapple with our grieving and lets us know that we are not alone in the struggles. For those who are grieving as well as those who had grieved and those who will grieve. ng.
• 
  Ugnė

  Tai yra knyga gedintiems paguosti - kad jų skausmas normalus ir kad visaip būna, todėl svarbu leisti sau liūdėti, ilgėtis, pykti ir kažkaip suktis. Tačiau taip pat joje esančios žinutės svarbios visiems - būti šalia gedinčio tikrai ne visada lengva, ir gal ir neturi būti lengva, net jei to ir norėtume.
• 
  Scottsdale Public Library

  This book is a comprehensive guide through grief and grieving. It covers the five stages of grieving in detail, as well as going through very specific cases of loss – for example, losing someone to suicide, losing someone with Alzheimer’s, or losing multiple people at the same time. I found this book to be very cathartic and helpful after the death of my grandmother to help me validate the feelings I was going through. I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to someone currently moving through their grief. – Michelle V.
• 
  Meredith

  I couldn't be more disappointed in this book. After losing my 33 year old best friend to cancer, I looked to this book as an ultimate source to help me learn about my grief, given Kübler-Ross' reputation. 'On Grief and Grieving' was dubbed "the definitive account of how we grieve" by The New Yorker, as per the cover, so I was excited for what it might offer me. What I found was a poorly written, God-heavy piece, with entire chapters on angels and the afterlife that don't even make reference to the fact that some people may not believe in these things. Here's an excerpt, for example: "After death, you will also experience a review of your life...You will be asked how much did you love and how much service did you do for mankind." Since when can a statement like that be made in a book meant as a study on grief, as opposed to a religious guide?
  
  Further, the book suggested offensive and silly ideas, such as a grieving spouse is likely to lose most of his or her couple friends. As part of a couple who has and will continue to remain quite close with my friend's husband, and as someone who has seen so many of his other couple friends rally around him, I recognize just how wrong this suggestion is.
  
  Lastly, I find that the way a book is written can help me connect to it, or can pull me out of it. I have read few books of this stature that were written so poorly. I am shocked at the editing, and again and again found myself re-reading sentences because they were written so badly. Overall, I found the book too anecdotal, religion heavy, poorly written and generally incredibly disappointing.
• 
  María Paz Greene F

  QUÉ LIBRO TAN INTERESANTE, y tan bien escrito. Es útil para lidiar no solo con la muerte, sino que cualquier proceso que se le asemeje an la vida. Está lleno de amor, y de verdad, y de compasión. Me encanta.
• 
  Tchatchke

  Helpful, but did not need the part about the afterlife. That could have been in another book, one I could have avoided.
• 
  Gautham Vasan

  I believe this is one of the most important books ever written. The landscape of grief is dark and dreary. When you lose a loved one, all you experience is excruciating pain, emptiness and numbness. One moment you are laughing at a shared memory of a loved one, the next moment you are curled up in your bed, wading through a deep well of sadness in isolation. Interactions with regular, functioning people made me feel somehow deeply, irreparably broken. This book helped me validate all the emotions I've experienced over my mourning period so far.
  
  I guess most of us are familiar with the Five Stages of Grief thanks to popular television (I learned it from House MD). But abstractly knowing it isn't the same as understanding it. This book broke several preconceived notions I had about the Five Stages of Grief. The authors have made it extremely clear to me that we don't experience these 5 stages in a linear phase, as if we graduate from one stage to the next. Personally, I was able to swing all 5 stages in a span of 2hrs last week. The authors also made this clear:
  
  "The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to."
  
  I think a lot of people, even ones who have lost loved ones themselves earlier in life haven't really processed their grief in a healthy fashion. There's a lot of incorrect advice floating out there based on ridiculous & inhumane societal expectations. The "productive" society of the 21st century tries to make everything depersonalized, clean and sterile. Our society places enormous pressure on us to get over the loss, attain closure and grieve as quickly as possible. There's a time limit allotted to grief and mourning. You hear insenstive questions like "It's been N months now, is the loss still affecting you?". This book does a great job documenting experiences and making it crystal clear that every grief is unique and it is a deeply personal experience. The book proved to be insightful, thought-provoking, and a honest description of events we all will experience in our lives.
  
  The book helped in numerous ways, but I'll list the two most important ones: 1) It gave me a map of grief - While I still have to experience the heart-rending pain and sadness, I atleast have the tools to trudge ahead and find my way in this unknown landscape. 2) It provided validation - Finding a lot of my thoughts and emotions articulated here was reassuring to say the least. To me, this book is a beacon that shed light, hope and comfort on the most difficult time in my life. For that, I'd be eternally grateful.
  
  P.S: I'm not including favorite quotes here since there's way too many to list.
• 
  Maud

  “Ik geloof dat verdriet, de unieke, helende kracht van verdriet, ons van zinloos naar zinvolheid voert. Als er een zesde stadium was, zou ik dat ‘zinvolheid’ noemen, of ‘hernieuwde zin’. We herstellen niet van het verlies, want herstel is eigenlijk niet mogelijk; wat we wel kunnen vinden is een hernieuwde bestaansreden, en verrijking, omdat we onze dierbare gekend hebben.” - David Kessler.
  
  
  Mezelf tijdens het lezen leren kennen, maar nog een hele lange weg te gaan.
  
  L.
• 
  David Dávila

  Muy buen libro, me ayudó mucho a entender por lo que estaba pasando, y empatizar y descifrar un poco mejor por lo que creía estaba pasando la gente que quiero. Es en definitiva un libro muy útil tras la pérdida de un ser querido, pero creo que hubiera sido aún más útil si lo hubiera leído antes.
• 
  Colleen

  Good grief, this was painful to read. If you are not Jewish or Christian and straight, with perfect relationships, this book will probably be maddening to you as it was for me. So many instances they go off into the supernatural--after-death "reviews" of one's life, and an entire section dedicated to angels. Now, that's fine if that's what you believe, but this is *not* a book generally about grief, then. Should be entitled "Judeo-Christian grief and grieving" or somesuch. It was frustrating not to find a single example in almost 300 pages of a non-heteronormative relationship or even a relationship where there was some kind of tension/dysfunction, addiction, or stress (except for a very brief section on suicide). Of course there are common experiences of grief that transcend identity, but those experiences were described in such almost patronizingly simple, Dr. Phil terms that it felt insulting. If I could summarize the book in one sentence and spare you reading the entire thing, it would be: 1. don't bury your feelings. Cry. Grief must be acknowledged and worked through to heal you
• 
  Aoife Lennon

  "Grief is the intense emotional response to the pain of a loss. It is the reflection of a connection that has been broken. The reality is you will grieve forever." By coincidence, I have finished this book on the months mind of someone very dear to me and is also my first significant loss. In short I needed this book at this time - I will probably buy my own copy as I found it very comforting and very powerful.
• 
  Iryna Paprotska

  It is a good book that helps to accept grief and it helps to understand people that are grieving.
  It also is a good book to help live through it. Simple and honest stories to remind that whatever is happening to you in grief should actually happen. You just need to go through it and let it heal you.
  And the stories are real. And these stories can be a great escape for those who cannot go and talk to someone about their feelings. It almost feels like sharing.
• 
  Tu Nguyen

  The book has abundant sound advices for grieving. The problem is one of its main premises is the afterlife. Such premise may help comfort the religious ones, but to atheists it only renders them more unsettled.
• 
  Andres B

  Wasn't expecting the more metaphysical snippets but they were certainly welcomed. Although it does read a bit choppy, it is definitely a magnificent resource in learning how grieving works and which purpose it serves in our human experience.
• 
  Wendy Thomas

  Excellent! Highly recommended for those struggling with grief.
• 
  Candice

  A good friend from my young widowed support group strongly recommended this book to us, and knowing the god-like stature Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has in the field of death and dying, I had very high expectations of this book. I have to say, though, it didn't live up to my hopes.
  
  While what it says is accurate, the book felt too glib to me, like an inspirational Cliff's Notes version of grief. I expected more. Perhaps it's just that I've read other grief books that have done the topics more justice, in more detail and using more resonating examples and wording. This book seemed like a good one to give to someone who knows someone who is grieving but who isn't necessarily grieving him or herself, or else for someone very early on in the grieving process, to give an idea of what the grieving person is going or will go through. But as a young widow 2 1/2 years years out at this point (in Feb. 2008) and one who's read a lot of grief books in that time, this one was disappointing. One great frustration I have with so many grief books, including this one, is that they rarely give an accurate depiction--or any indication, period--of just how long grief takes (not that there's ever truly an end) or how long the issues decribed still hold true. And I feel this absence does an injustice to those years out from the death. But that's my own soap box. I also have strong conflicting opinions on the five stages of loss in general because they're so horribly misunderstood and misinterpreted by people not in grief, which could also have contributed to my mixed antipathy to this particular book and the authors.
  
  Many kudos, though, to Ross and Kessler for including a section on sex and grief; I haven't seen that topic in many grief books and it certainly deserves attention. And I include a caution, too--the authors include as a fundamental premise for all they write that there's an afterlife and a god. While it's not religiously framed, it could be a potential turnoff to those in grief who don't believe in an afterlife or who are questioning their fundamental beliefs.
• 
  Demetria

  This is an excellent book that I highly recommend to anyone in any stage of the grieving process. In these pages I found warm, practical, reassuring and insightful passages. I felt a range of emotions reading it and it's not possible for me to highlight every part that moved me, but I do want to share one paragraph that offers a good summary of what it means to live with grief.
  
  "The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to."
  
  In addition to offering bits of wisdom about the general grieving process like the passage above, authors Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler also speak to specific circumstances like sudden death, suicide and the loss of a child. While noting the depth of feeling for any type of grief, they also acknowledge that certain circumstances will trigger specific thoughts and reactions that must be accordingly addressed. Additionally, they speak on topics such as dreams, sex, hauntings, isolation and regrets. These are subjects that might be hard for people to discuss with loved ones and unless that person is in therapy, these important issues might stay bottled up, eating away at the person's psyche.
  
  This book was gifted to me and I'm grateful for that. It has been very useful. If you know someone who has suffered a loss and you don't know what to say (Who does? Nobody.), this might be a good addition to a care package for that person.
• 
  Sean

  Finding life and death. Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of Grief of: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance have been immensely helpful to people over the years. The process provides a way to work through all those difficult emotions and discover how to hope again. If she were simply to concentrate on these five areas, that would be worth the price of the book; but she goes much further and deals with the inner world of grief (e..g. loss, regrets and fault). the outer world of grief (e.g. anniversaries, health and holidays), as well as specific circumstances (e.g. Children, suicide and Alzheimer's). There are some books you can move through very quickly but this is one which demands more thought and reflection. Most people are only likely to read this book if they are involved in the caring professions of if they have recently suffered the loss of someone dear to them, however, because death is something which affects us all, I would recommend this book to everybody. This is the best book on death and grief I have come across. Outstanding.
• 
  Leila Summers

  Of all the books I devoured after my husband passed away, this one was most helpful to me. While many of Kübler-Ross' books focus on the dying, this book is for those of us who are left behind to grieve and find our way through an unimaginable and indescribable loss.
  
  On Grief and Grieving begins by describing the five stages of grief which include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These can last for different periods of time, or we can go through all of them in one day. This book helped me to understand the path of grief that I was walking. For the first time, I could identify with every feeling and situation described. It was a great comfort to know that my feelings were normal and that I was not alone. Grief is a part of the healing.
• 
  Büşra

  “Another loss is the old “you,” the person you were before this loss occurred, the person you will never be again. Up till now, you ­didn’t know this kind of sadness. You ­couldn’t even have imagined anything could feel this bad. Now that you are inconsolable, it feels like the new “you” is forever changed, crushed, broken, and irreparable. These temporary feelings will pass, but you will never be restored to that old person.
  What is left is a new you, a different you, one who will never be the same again or see the world as you once did. A terrible loss of innocence has occurred, only to be replaced with vulnerability, sadness, and a new reality where something like this can happen to you and has happened.”