The 5 stages of dying (denial through acceptance) also apply when facing cancer

The same process applies to every change no matter how large or small that hits us. Most of the time this process takes a nano second for small changes and months or years for significant changes, such as a loved one dying or a job loss.
In the 1st stage the reptilian part of the brain takes over, it is incapable of rational thought; any information given while in this stage will not be remembered, decisions will be emotional and not well thought out (denial, anger).
There is a course "The Change Cycle" that I took years ago that was very valuable in helping me manage difficult situations like facility closings and terminations. There are a lot of actions one can take to make the moves through the 5 stages much quicker and less painful.

You hit one of my pet peeves. There is really no basis for the Kübler-Ross stages model of grieving. It was based on one person's personal/anecdotal observation of people who were dying, and has never been tested in a wider population. I'm not just being sciency and picky - I believe it is destructive.

No one should be telling anyone else that there is a right or a wrong way to grieve, that there are stages they must go through to accomplish it successfully. Setting up expectations for yourself or others is destructive - how dare anyone judge someone who is grieving? The ways a person grieves are unique, and reflect his or her personality and life experiences. Feelings are messy, often conflicting, coming and going in no orderly fashion. There are no stages and no timelines. What the person grieving needs from friends and loved ones is sympathy, not judgment.

- Allen

Agree with The Tall One.
I bet if you analyzed many folks, they will all experience some of the stages, but not necessarily all of them. In fact, there might be other stages not mentioned.

I seem to recall there was a "why me" stage. I never felt that way.

Bargaining? Well, for me, not with anyone up above. But a lot of hoping!

Mel

Some good counterarguments to the assumption that the Kubler-Ross staging model is effective are being expressed.

I don't know how particularly well entrenched that model is within the psychological community, but I am not especially interested in defending it. (My motivation for starting this thread was simply to note that there appeared to be some interesting parallels between the Kubler-Ross model, and how people might go about approaching their own cancer experience, with that model in mind).

But some of your observations have prompted me to wonder whether the real issue here is whether science can at some point ever succeed in measuring, objectively, levels of feeling in people.

For example, let me digress for a moment (bear with me, I'll tie it in) on an experience I had not long ago.

While in an exam room at my family med doctor, waiting for the doc to come in and give me my annual general check-up, I noticed a wall "cartoon pain chart" in the room that was almost identical to the following:

www.ttuhsc.edu/provost/clinic/forms/acform3.02.a.pdf

"How unscientific" I at first thought to myself. But then I realized that it is apparently the best that medicine can do right now to measure a patient's pain level, at least at the oractitioner level.

The tie-in: Is this not as well the case with feelings?

Denial: From "nahh.." to "That is absolutely not true!"
Anger: From "I'm a bit miffed" to through-the-roof rage
Bargaining: From "Yeah, OK" to "OMG find something!"
Depression: From mild to severe
Acceptance: From "Yeah, OK" to "I absolutely accept it."

Until we (science) can manage to arrive at a realistic, workable, and presumably numerical, measuring scale to replace the subjectivity expressed above regarding feelings, tools such as the Kubler-Ross model will of course always be justifiably subject to criticism.

BTW, at least there seems to be some progress in the area of finding objective ways to measure pain.

This article, for example, seems to be a very good update on that:

science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/measure-pain.htm

From this article:

"Pain is highly subjective and can vary greatly from person to person … women are more sensitive to it, as are redheads, people who are depressed, ill or non-athletic …and a myriad of quirks influence pain. For instance, most people are better able to tolerate pain on the dominant side of their bodies (right, if you're right-handed; left if you're left-handed)"

(Not sure our forum sisters will agree with that comment about women and pain, though!)

"Researchers have spent decades trying to come up with reliable ways to measure it. In the 1940s, medical scientists created a unit of measurement called the "dol," which gauged a patient's reaction to having a point on his or her hand burned."

"Fortunately, advances in medical technology may make pain assessment more accurate in the future. In 2013, researchers at The University of Colorado-Boulder were able to map pain using brain scans. In evaluating research subjects' brain responses to different levels of heat, the researchers noticed the images displayed distinct neurological signatures for different pain responses. Such clear-cut results allowed them to identify pain levels on an objective basis for, perhaps, the first time in human history."

There are some who even argue whether Psychology is even deserving of the title of "science." I suppose numerically objective techniques for measuring pain/emotional levels, as the article immediately above describes, might help allay some of their concerns.

I went through most of the stages but like the author I think sadness replaced anger. Homer offers a light-hearted view:

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D6_msdM8rU

I agree with TA on most of his superb analysis.. I only differ on " innate tendencies to see patterns even if there are none..." If anyone thinks about this statement...they will see my response in TA's first post on this thread in his own words... I do not mean to be so personal...it is in good faith and in good faith... really dislike OP... it's well...its impersonal...l

Personally I have no problem with the stages. I think it is more of a way of understanding what someone, whether a friend or loved one or you MAY be going through. I don't think it is meant to be a tool used for judging someone, I think it is a tool, like much of psychology; as a way of understanding what you or others MAY be going through. Of course there are always going to be people who are going to judge what others are going through and they think they always have someone's answers as to how they should live and cope but I think that is their own shortcoming. Just because I may have an understanding of what someone MAY be going through does not give me license to direct them through it. Like with most emotional challenges it is sometimes best to just be there to listen and support them in whatever way they need to navigate through their feelings. And it does help if you are going through some challenging emotional times yourself to have a general idea as to why you MAY be reacting the way you are. But of course one size does not fit all...Jim

I firmly believe in "stages" and they can be found everywhere.

But, there is no "one size fits all."


If you Google-> stages of romantic relationships

Odds are you can relate to most of what you read. But then the more you read, the more opinions you see...which would fit the no one size theory.

Bolo, I hear you. The issue, I think, is the difference between hard data and empirical data. In the social sciences, most of the data is about statistics referencing large groups, or it's question/answer based. And we all know that the format of the question frequently drives the data in a certain direction.

All that being said, the social sciences are fascinating because they are trying to understand what makes people (whether in groups or as individuals) tick. It's not exactly predictive, but it's close.

I would suggest that the real definition of science is that science is a process, a method that can be used to find answers to hard questions. And yes, all the scientific journals of the world, if accumulated in a single pile, still only scratch the surface of what there is that could be known. We, in all truth, know darned little about anything. (I remember, as a student, being introduced to an entire bookcase in the department library that contained a reference work called Bielstein. It was (and is) the greatest reference in Organic Chemistry ever compiled, and it's just a review of the published literature)

The craziest part of the scientific endeavor, at least to me, is that we don't know a great deal because we don't know enough to ask the right questions. These are the unknown unknowns. We don't even know that we don't know them.

Here's how one finds out how someone is feeling: ask them! One doesn't need a model, especially one as suspect as this one, to ask the question and be open to whatever answer comes. This is where psychotherapy is valuable - it sets up a time and place for asking and answering those questions seriously, and without judgment or other agendas. The therapist doesn't need a model of what "MAY" be occurring - in fact, and this is what I'm really arguing here, having that model in his head may interfere with hearing the real answer because of confirmation bias. That's why this untested model is destructive - it doesn't enable real communication, it interferes with it.

On top of that, therapists have goals for patients - their role is not simply observational. And if a therapist is trying to get a patient from Stage 1 to Stage 2 (because the model says that that's what should happen for the process to be fulfilled), it does a genuine disservice to the grieving person. Judgment is inherent - you haven't yet succeeded in achieving Stage 2.

Mel,
You would enjoy "The Believing Brain" by Michael Shermer. It's all about patternticity, how people reach faulty conclusions based on patterns that really don' exist. It explains how beliefs are formed and how difficult it is to change beliefs, regardless of the evidence against them.
Your example of the Sports Illustrated curse, players who are on the cover always go into a slump soon after. They are on the cover because of an unnatural streak, then simply revert to the mean, just like everything else in life.

It is human nature to want to quantify and categorize everything we see, feel, and touch. Grief is no exception.