Informative Speech Outline

Kubler-Ross, E and Kessler, D (2005). On Grief and Grieving, London: Simon & Schuster. p7-28.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler came up with the five stages of grief, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Although grief is individual depending on the person and the situation, these stages help organize the process of grieving. The stages act more as tools than a timeline. The movie My Girl portrays these stages after the death of Thomas J., Vada’s best and only friend.

The Death of Ivan Illych brings an excellent in-depth description of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 cycles of grief theory. In the book, it shows how Ivan Illych goes through these cycles in their own individual way. The cycles that Kubler-Ross uses in her theory are: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. To get a better understanding of these cycles, this paper will describe each cycle and provide quotations that will help develop an idea of how someone going through these cycles may react.

Theorists like Lindemann claim that there are five phases that are normal to go through in grieving: somatic disturbance, preoccupation with the deceased, guilt, hostility or anger, and difficulty with everyday tasks. Kubler-Ross identified the commonly recognized and accepted stages of grief

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Axelrod, 2017). She stated that

Five stages of grief were identified by Dr. Kubler-Ross; Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Everybody will grieve in their own unique way, and the order of the five stages may differ from everybody. Some people may not even go through certain stages at all. Grieving helps us get through a rough time whether is finding out a love one has passed or even your own dying process.

The book, Lament For a Son, written by Nicholas Wolterstorff talks about his pain and grief after losing his 25-year-old son (Joy, 2009). His son died while on a mountain-climbing expedition. Dr. Wolterstorff has several books published during his career as a philosophical theology professor in Yale Divinity. However, he wrote Lament for a Son with a different journal style since it is a personal thing for him. The book is similar to a journal as he narrates the events that happened before and after his son’s death. The emotions expressed in the book are common among people who lose close relatives. What matters is how a person handles the issue. Kubler-Ross invented the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptancethat explain the escalation of grief when stricken by bad news (Axelrod, 2004). The paper looks into the book and its relation to the five stages of grief.

At some point in our life we all deal with grief. Whether it’s because of the loss of a loved one, a relationship, or even if you’re the one dying. Grief is something no one wants to bear, but we all feel its heaviness one way or another. In her model, Kubler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief, and this model can be applied to every situation involving grief or loss. In the novel Ordinary People, by Judith Guest, we can see the process of grief and how we and those around us are affected emotionally through the perspective of Conrad and Calvin.

Someone who is grieving will experience “major psychological, spiritual, social and physiological” changes throughout the grieving process (Hooyman & Kramer, 2006, p37). There are many theories and models that support these words. This essay will discuss Freud’s theory of grief work (Davies, 2004), Bowlby’s attachment theory (Walsh, 2012), and Worden’s tasks of grief (Worden & Winokuer, 2011). The major tasks of grief throughout the four different stages of life will be looked at, as well as common grief reactions, and ways to support people through these. In addition how children, adolescents, adults and the elderly understand and respond to grief will be examined. Finally how people at the various stages of life confront their own death will be looked at, including some personal examples.

Grief is a personal adaptive reaction to the loss of a relationship or a serious attachment and it’s a process that takes time. Nicholas Wolterstorff in his book, Lament for a Son, narrated this grief process as he reflected on his son’s death. Provoked by death, grief can impede a person’s thought process and can take a heavy toll as they become emotionally labile (Brosche, 2003). In a healthcare setting, a nurse may experience grief after the death of a patient and often this emotion is masked and kept private. It is crucial for healthcare providers to recognize and deal with emotions appropriately to competently function in the workplace. This paper will examine the five stages of grief as defined by Kübler-Ross and how these stages are in parallel to Nicholas Wolterstorff’s grief process and how he eventually finds joy in understanding the significance of death.

The stages of mourning and grief are universal and are experienced by people from all walks of life. Mourning occurs in response to an individual’s own terminal illness or to the death of a valued being, human or animal. There are five stages of normal grief that were first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying.”

Grief is the act following the loss of a loved one. While grief and bereavement are normal occurrences, the grief process is a social construct of how someone should behave. The acceptable ways that people grieve change because of this construct. For a time it was not acceptable to grieve; today, however, it is seen as a necessary way to move on from death (Scheid, 2011).The grief process has been described as a multistage event, with each stage lasting for a suggested amount of time to be considered “normal” and reach resolution. The beginning stage of grief is the immediate shock, disbelief, and denial lasting from hours to weeks (Wambach, 1985). The middle stage is the acute mourning phase that can include somatic and emotional turmoil. This stage includes acknowledging the event and processing it on various levels, both mentally and physically. The final stage is a period of

In her seminal work on grief and grieving, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the concept now very well known as the Five (5) Stages of Grief, enumerated chronologically as follows: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In this concept, Kubler-Ross explored and discussed the normative stages that people go through when they experience the loss of a loved one and feel grief as result of this loss. It is also through these stages that people are now more aware of their feelings and thoughts when experiencing grief and the loss of a loved one. While the stages of loss are mainly developed for grief experienced with the death of a loved one, it is a generally accepted framework in understanding feelings of grief when an individual experiences the loss of a significant individual in his/her life. The discussions that follow center on the discussion of Kubler-Ross' 5 Stages of Grief, applied in the context of the Story of Job in the Bible.

One theory is by Kubler-Ross she identified five stages of grief which are Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Individuals can spend different amounts of time on these stages and these stages don’t need to be processed in order (www.ekrfoundation.org 2016).

This essay explores several models and theories that discuss the complexities of loss and grief. A discussion of the tasks, reactions and understanding of grief through the different stages from infants to the elderly, will also be attempted.