The only constant in this universe is that things change. Small changes very rarely require us to stop, take stock and adjust our basic assumptions about our day to day lives. Larger changes, such as losing a job, a home, a loved one (or some other fundamental support in our lives), may require us to change the way we think about ourselves in the context of our lives, and thus how we proceed from here.
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For simplicity, we will be referring to the change / loss process as Grief. We use this basic model for all changes, often just quickly. We often only notice it for major change, which often includes grieving.
There are three major variants of grief,
- Expected grief
- Unexpected grief, and
- Complicated grief
A Brief History of Kübler-Ross’s Phases of Grief
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote a book in 1969 called “On Death and Dying“, where she detailed several phases or stages of the grieving process. Dr Kübler-Ross created this model by interviewing people who had received a terminal diagnosis and recording their process of understanding this news. These models became the “5 Stages of Grief”. Dr Kübler-Ross modified the 5 Phases to better reflect how people were using it, to manage the death of a loved one, not one’s own death. Dr Kübler-Ross later amended this model to include Surprise as a pre-curser phase and Testing/Planning as a last phase.
Types of Grief
Expected and Unexpected Grief
When we know a change is coming, we begin to come to terms with that change prior to the actual change happening. Our process of change continues through the change, but the impact is frequently lesser than for unexpected or complex grief.
A significant factor in the impact of the grief is how much choice we had in the change. Consider leaving a job, if you are fired unexpectedly and given four weeks notice the impact of that job loss is going to be generally greater than if you decide to resign because you have found a superior job elsewhere, or you had decided you had enough of this one. The significant difference here is that your being fired was done to you, rather than you chose to leave.
Another example to consider is a relationship break up. The person who ends the relationship has usually spent some time processing (grieving) the end of the relationship they wanted and at the point in time they have accepted it is no longer salvageable, they have got part way through the Grief Process when they announce the end of the relationship. The person being broken up with usually doesn’t expect it and so has done little processing. This person is starting from the beginning.
Another example of expected grief is a diagnosis of a terminal illness. Whether it is you or someone you love, knowing that they will die soon because of an illness gives you time to process that change (death) prior to the change (death). The impact of this person’s death is likely different to someone’s life ending unexpectedly.
Complicated Grief
Linger Complicated Grief
Most change is rapid and clear cut. What was is no longer, such as a job loss, moving house, end of a relationship or death of a loved one. Sometimes the change is multi-staged or not so clear cut, such as demotion, living between houses, an on again off again relationship, a mental illness changing a loved one or some other medical condition such as acquired brain injury / stroke etc. Complicated grief can be thought of as trying to manage the change that happens in the steps between the beginning of the change and the end of the change.
Let us take a closer look at what grief is trying to do for us. We humans simplify the world into an unique individualised “world view” model that gives us a simple “how to be” model. Our day to day actions do not require deep philosophical investigation, they are default actions that are drawn from our “how to be” model to fit our “world view” model. When a significant change occurs, we need to adjust the “world view” to incorporate that change, then adjust our “how to be” model to suit that “world view”.
For example, when I am in a relationship, I tend to think in terms of “we” and “us”, yet when that relationship breaks up, I need to adjust my thinking to be “I” and “me”. How many people have stopped working for some organisation and still referred to what they do as “we”? Grieving is a process that transitions us from the before picture to a working model of after.
Complicated grief is not a simple before and after picture. The change is not a clear cut difference, it is a gradual complex change that is taking time or hard to measure. There is a big difference between losing your partner to a break up or death, vs an accident that has paralysed them, or caused some kind of brain injury. You are grieving for the change in your “world view” that has a fully functioning partner, and adjusting to a “world view” that has a less functioning partner. This requires a “how to be” model change. A whole bunch of assumptions need to change, but it is complex. Another example can be losing a partner slowly to Dementia, a degenerative disease that slowly erodes a persons cognitive ability. Your partner becomes less the person you fell in love with and lived with all these years and is becoming something else… where was the clear boundary? What is the new change?
Complicated grief occurs when there is no clear boundary between then and now, rather it is an erosion of the old and current into some unpredictable something. The grieving isn’t a process of updating the “world view”, it is a constant evolution or erosion of the “world view” and the grieving just keeps on going.
Impacted Complicated Grief
Most commonly we are managing a single significant change at a time. This allows us to go through our change / grieving process in a regular fashion. Sometimes the world isn’t that kind to us and we have many things changing at the same time. It is hard to know by how much a thing has changed when the methods we would use to measure that change is also changing. At this point in time, a relatively simple though significant change can be impacted by other things changing too, summing up to a profound life change.
If you do not have a therapist to help you through this, it is highly recommended to get one.
Biological Complicated Grief
We process change through our brain. Our brain is full of biological chemistry. Our brain is part of our body, consuming 20% of our bodies resources. When our body is ill, or our brain chemistry is off kilter, processing change can be very hard. Part of our brain uses mood and memory to help moderate our neurochemicals. A significant life experience can be used by this part of our brain to push us to produce additional neurochemicals, which is good for emergencies, but terrible for letting change go.
This is similar to certain kinds of PTSD, and anxiety disorders, where the trauma event just seems to refuse to move on because that part of our brain has found it very helpful in balancing neurotransmitters. For this we need medication.
Be aware that many doctors, psychologists and therapists will not recognise that the experience is being as a tool for moderating neurochemistry, and will think that the repeat traumatic experience or complicated grief experience is significant in the absence of recognising the neurological problem.
The 7 Phases of Grief
The world is big and complex and we are mere humans with limited knowledge and understanding. To exist in this world, we necessarily have to simplify our understanding of it into a model that we can then use to predict what happens next. We take actions on those predictions so that we can interact with the world in real time.

Imagine that someone throws a ball at you. As you see it approach, you track its path. The point that you see it is not where it actually is, that is where it was. You predict where the ball is going and where it is mostly going to be. You move your hand to the place that the ball will be soon, so that when your hand gets there, it can catch the ball. If you move your hand once the ball is in that location, you’ve missed it. You close your hand to catch the ball before the ball has got there, so that the signals travelling from your brain travel down your spine, through your arm and to the muscles to close your hand as the ball arrives. If you waited for the impact of the ball against your palm to trigger the closing of your hand to catch the ball, by the time you sense that signal travelling up your arm to your brain and your brain sends the signal to close your hand, the ball would have bounced out of your hand and you failed to catch it.
By predicting the future, we act in the present, in real time, to affect change.
So long as our internal model is good enough to make good predictions, we don’t really need to update it. We rely on this model to navigate most of our lives.
We often assume that the model we have of the world *is* the world, and we can get very upset when we find out it is not.
To quote George Box, “Essentially all models are wrong, but some are useful”. So long as our model is useful enough, we can use it.
When our model is not good enough, we need to adjust it. We need to reconcile how our model failed to create an update to the model so we can get back to “good enough”. That process of change is some common phases. When our model is wrong enough, updating the model can be painful. At this point we refer to the process as Grief.
Phase 1 – Surprise
Surprise informs us that our model of the world has failed. This could be due to a poor model, or something we didn’t know about yet (ignorance), or because something outside of our reasonable ability to predict has occurred.
Surprise is the recognition of change. It often sets us back and we can demonstrate this phase by running around trying to get facts, or sitting in stunned silence. We can’t plan – we just have to get it through our heads this change has happened.
We may be able to ignore this change if it is temporary, and if so, this process stops.
Some people process this stage very quickly, while others take quite a while. This stage can pop up as we recognise the enormity of what has changed in our lives.

When people refer to the 5 Stages of Grief, they skip Surprise.
Phase 2 – Denial

Denial is a refusal to believe that the change has happened.
This is a safety step in our minds that slows down how rapidly we change our world model. Having a little denial or disbelief means we don’t prematurely change our “world view/model” and allows a small bump in our lives to settle back to “close enough” to our normal world model such that we don’t really need to modify our “how to be” system. If that works, we exit the process here.
Denial is a little related to shock – where we first learn of the change – but this is a different as we have had this information for a bit and we know intellectually that it is so, yet we emotionally can’t accept it. This allows us to gather evidence and do some reality checks. We do risk becoming stuck here and just point blank refute the “in the cold of light” evidence. Surprise is more about being unable to cope with the enormity of change while Denial is refusing to accept change that we recognise.
If you find yourself stuck in this stage, it is important to review what has changed and look at some of the implications of what that change can mean. Denial is a tough stage to be stuck in as our instinct is to reject the reality of change in order to avoid adjusting the “world view”. The cost of change seems too high compared to pretending the change has not occurred. This will cost us far more later. It is cheaper to change ourselves to the world, than to try to change the world back to how “it should be”.
Phase 3- Bargaining
Bargaining is related to denial. We try to find a way to change what has happened so it returns to the old model, which saves us from having to adjust our world model to incorporate the change.
Yet we want the old familiar, comfortable old, regardless of if we loved or hated it.
This stage makes more sense when you can see change coming (someone is leaving, the task is over) yet we do it with sudden loss too (what if I did this, or if that happened, what if we tried this other thing – then things will return to “normal”). Change is inevitable and you can never go back. You can just make a new future.
Sometimes a small relatively cheap change is enough to get things moving again. When this works, we can stop the process here. When it doesn’t, we keep going.

In the traditional 5 Stages of Grief, Bargaining is placed after Anger. We think it makes more sense to be prior.
Phase 4 – Anger

Change takes energy. Our bodies default to energy is adrenaline, and that can be interpreted as anxiety, anger and aggressive action.
The less choice we had with change, the less power we have to affect the situation. This feeling of powerlessness and victimisation frequently triggers an anger emotion. We feel helpless that this has happened and we feel violated. We want to blame someone.
Anger is the emotion that tells us that our boundaries have been crossed, that something has happened to us and we are in a position of weakness. We typically become aggressive to others, or to those we have lost, or we try to find someone or something to blame. We frequently aren’t very subtle. We will often find reasons to sustain our anger and re-trigger ourselves.
Problems occur when aggression is turned out towards those who are wanting to help us, or are also trying to deal with grief. This can create isolation when we should be seeking comfort, connection and understanding.
Aggression can also turn inwards which can lead to physical and social self harm, suicidal ideation and a diminished sense of self worth.
Aggression, whether external or internal, is a quick attempt to regain power over a situation. When significant change has happened unexpectedly, aggression frequently makes no difference to the powerlessness of the situation. The change has happened, regardless of how aggressive you can become.
Try to minimise the aggression and look at how your position of power has shifted, of how your boundaries have been crossed, and why you are feeling helpless. Once these are identified, you can begin to adapt your new model to address these changes.
Try to look at what changes do need to be made and try to channel the adrenaline towards creative, empowering and uplifting change. These changes may be social, such as not going back to an ex; or personal, such as accepting that what you knew is now out of date; or situational such as resigning from work.
Phase 5 – Sadness
The Sadness / depression stage has two purposes
- a safety fuse to shut us down when we are overwhelmed,
- a contemplation of the past and letting old ways/assumptions go

Appearance
We can display this phase in a multiple ways, depending on who we are and our culture.
- Crying
- Keening
- Inactivity
- Avoidance of certain things
- Social isolation
- Sorrow
There is no right or wrong way to do this.
Safety Fuse
When the emotions are too much for us to bear, we shut down. This is kind of like the automatic cut off switch in electrical goods – it’s too much, so rather than being damaged, we shut down. We do less, we avoid stimuli, we find it hard to feel (whether it is emotional, sensory – like taste – etc), and we just seek to escape. Escaping can be to go away from things (holiday), or into another world (TV, computer games, books). The pain is just too great to manage at the moment and the depression stage is a really important safety switch.
This is okay. It just means the rest is too hard right now and you need to regather your strength. Avoid too much stimulation, either physical or emotional. Avoid getting stuck in here – you have to go out sometimes and do a bit even if you don’t feel like it, but aim for bite sized portions and give yourself leave to back off and take a break.
Letting Go
The other aspect of depression is contemplating the past, looking at the old model and mourning its passing. This aspect of depression is an important accounting of the past such that we can compare it to our new burgeoning model, and let the old one go.
Mourning the past can be a problem when we become stuck in the past, refusing to let what is gone go. This prevents us from developing a future.
Phase 6 – Acceptance

Once the mind has reoriented to the change we have a new pattern of seeing the world and behaving installed. Our new model of the world has encompassed the change from how it was before to how it is now and we have a prototype model of “how to be” worked out that we are comfortable with. We have accepted the change, whether we like it or not.
Acceptance does not mean approval.
Hopefully this is the end of the journey, but often times it is a temporary reprieve as we realise that there is more to process.
These models are prototypes and full functioning new “world views” and “how to be” models will take time to test and develop.
Don’t be disheartened, it is natural to bounce between feelings.
Phase 7 – Planning
As we develop a new model to incorporate the facts of change, we begin to make predictions again. We switch from living in the immediate now to beginning to plan for our future. It is time to start living life again and testing the new model.
There will be glitches, as with any new system, and adjustments will need to be made. This is perfectly natural.
There will be times that you miss the way things were, and you may ounce back to some of the stages of grief as you adapt to the new models and adjust them to better reflect the changing world. That is a very human response to change.

This stage is not part of the traditional 5 Stages of Grief model.
The Myth of Linear Grief

Pain / guilt
It hurts.
Change does that.
We miss those who have gone, hopes that have died, and opportunities that are lost. We can express this in the form of weeping, crying, keening, sleeping, silence and so on.
To justify this pain, we often try to find someone to blame. When it is not possible to blame someone else, we turn the blame on ourselves. Either we did something that actually contributed to this change, or we didn’t. Either way, we will feel guilt.
When there was no direct or significant act we did to cause the change, we try to find a reason to justify our guilt, seeking minor things we might have done wrong, escalating them to things that we did do wrong and would have staved off this thing that created change.
This is false.
People make decisions and you aren’t responsible for them. If it isn’t a person’s choice, then it is another random factor (rock falling on someone’s head, car accident, animal attack etc) that no one could have affected. Only if you point the weapon and pull the trigger can you be held responsible, and that is a legal matter we aren’t getting into. In the vast majority of times, it wasn’t you.
Yet you feel like someone must be to blame, and in the absence of blaming another, you blame yourself. You have given yourself god like responsibility for the change, without god like fore knowledge to see it coming and god like power to have staved off the situation. This is not fair to yourself.
Bad stuff happens. What makes us great is how we adapt to these changes. That is what got us out of the trees, lighting fires and creating computers. Adapting to change. It is important to take a cold look at the change, accept that it has happened and work out where you are going to go next, rather than becoming stuck on blaming yourself for what was beyond your control.