Four Stages Of Mourning
STAGE I: To Accept The Reality Of The Loss
The first stage of grieving is to
come full face with the reality that the person is dead. That the person is gone
and will not return.
Many people who have sustained a loss find themselves calling out for the lost person, and they sometimes tend to misidentify others in their environment.
The opposite of accepting the reality
of the loss is not believing through some type of denial.
It should be emphasized that after a death, it is very normal to hope for a reunion or to assume that the deceased is not gone. However for most people, this illusion is short-lived, at least for this life; and this enables them to move through to Stage II.
STAGE II: To Experience The Pain Of Grief
Experiencing the pain of grief
includes the literal physical pain that many people experience and the emotional
and behavioral pain associated with loss. It is necessary to acknowledge and
work through this pain or it will manifest itself through some symptom or other
form of aberrant behavior.
One of the aims of grief counseling is to help facilitate people through this difficult second stage so they don’t carry the pain with them throughout their lives.
STAGE III: To Adjust To An Environment In Which The Deceased Is Missing
Adjusting to a new environment means different things to different people, depending on what the relationship was with the deceased and the various roles the deceased played. For many widows it takes a considerable period of time to realize what it is like to live without their husbands. This realization often begins to emerge around three months after the loss and involves coming to terms with living alone, raising children alone, facing an empty house, and managing finances alone.
STAGE IV: To Withdraw Emotional Energy And Reinvest It In Another Relationship
The fourth and final stage in the
grieving process is to affect an emotional withdrawal from the deceased person
so that this emotional energy can be reinvested in another relationship.
The fourth stage is hindered by
holding on to the past attachment rather than going on and forming new ones. Some
people find loss so painful that they make a pact with themselves never to love
again.
One benchmark of a completed grief reaction is when the person is able to think of the deceased without pain. There is always a sense of sadness to think of the deceased without pain. There is always a sense of sadness when you think of someone who you have loved and lost, but it is a different kind of sadness-- it lacks the wrenching quality it previously had.