Over the past year, many of my friends have been struggling to make sense of recent events, including perceived attacks on democratic and other values globally, feeling bewildered, frustrated, and other complex and frequently contradictory emotions. Yet recognizing that we may be undergoing psychological processes of grief can help us cope and respond as effectively as possible.
In 1969, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross described five stages of grief that patients commonly undergo: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These phases may not all occur, or they can appear in a different order or direction, or more than one at a time. We can experience them in losing a spouse or beforehand, in “anticipatory grief” before the loss occurs, when we sense it looming.
This framework has assisted countless patients, therapists, and others, and can now aid many of us in finding ways to move forward in the midst of these fears. Clearly, perceived threats to democratic values differ from certain other threatened losses, but important parallel processes exist.
I’ve been undergoing these stages at various points. I cannot read more than three articles a day about certain events around the world. I start feeling overwhelmed, viscerally upset, and numb—it’s all too much to contemplate. Yet these reactions reflect efforts at minimization and denial, which can be self-protective but ultimately create problems.
At other times, friends and I have felt helpless—as if nothing we can do will stem these challenges. These emotions, along with hopelessness, despondency, and despair, often reflect depression. Countless people also feel anger. Some people bargain. Patients occasionally say, “Please God, if I get through this cancer scare, I’ll attend church more.” This stage can involve statements such as: “If only__.” “What if__.” “If only I had left my house ten minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have gotten into that car accident.” Many people now wonder: “What if I had spent more time volunteering for candidates, causes, and organizations I support?”
Businesses and other leaders also seek to bargain and hope to win favor, and universities debate whether to alter their policies regarding applicants’ and students’ race and ethnicity in response to various pressures.
These types of bargaining clearly differ. Whether various negotiations will succeed, and if so, how much, remains uncertain. Individuals’ psychological bargaining will not alter recent, broader political turmoil.
Kübler-Ross called the fifth stage of grief “acceptance,” but this term is misleading; it does not encompass all that can occur in this phase. It does not mean resigning oneself to a perceived loss, but rather embracing the threat as real, rather than denying it, or simply getting depressed or angry, or ineffectively bargaining about it.
As a psychiatrist, I’ve seen how identifying and labelling confusing feelings can help people better grasp and explicitly talk about them, and decide how best to respond. Recognizing that the psychological challenges we are experiencing are parts of inherently human processes of mourning gives us language and frameworks to better understand these reactions. As we struggle with each stage, we can thereby feel less alone, realizing that these constitute parts of larger processes through which we can and should work to pass. We need not be mired in any one phase. Many people, for instance, remain stuck in denial, leading them to avoid reading all the news. Yet this understandable impulse may ultimately fail to be effective and can carry costs. Others are trapped in depression and despair, or attend rallies but feel they can do nothing more.
Instead, we should recognize that we are experiencing stages of anticipatory grief that we may need to undergo, and that can take time, but will not resurrect the dead. This realization can, however, help us in progressing to more effective strategies and solutions.
(A version of this essay also appeared in The Hill)
