In psychology, special attention is paid to the phenomenon of grief, as a result - the stages of grief. After the death of a loved one, due to a serious life failure or separation, negative emotions can overwhelm a person so much that sometimes it seems that there will be no way out. Experts who are well aware of the peculiarities of the human psyche can talk about how grief develops, what successive stages it goes through. Realizing that this is only a temporary phenomenon, it is easier for a person to cope with what is happening in the soul.
What is it about?
Grieving is usually called the first response of a person to some loss, expressed by emotions. Most often, psychologists have to work with people who go through stages of mourning at the death of a loved one. However, this reason is not the only one. Losses that provoke difficult experiences are different. Events may not be fatal at all, from the outside they seem insignificant, but a person takes them seriously, so an emotional crisisproceeds in severe form. For some, it is provoked by the loss of an embryo, termination of pregnancy, for others - a divorce or a break in an unofficial romantic relationship. Grief arises from the loss of financial well-being, social status. For some, the condition is formed due to the loss of a job or injury, mutilation.
As is known from psychology, the stages of mourning often accompany the process of giving up a dream that simply could not be realized and the person realized this. A similar state can cause lost opportunities. If the chance to realize oneself in the chosen business disappears, earn the desired amount and move to another country with relatives, a person may find himself in the arms of great grief. This is possible if it does not seem real to be with a loved one or give birth to a child. Excessive ambition, unjustified expectations, the inability to realize aspirations are possible factors of grief. A person loses what has not come true, and his psyche responds to this with heavy emotional experiences.
Experiences and reactions
The strength of the reaction to an ongoing event is usually determined by its significance and scale in the life of a particular person. In many ways, the duration of being in grief depends on what happened. There is nothing surprising in the fact that psychologists are well aware of the stages of mourning at death, parting, disappointment, because this very phenomenon of immersion in grief is a cultural process. It is implemented by mental mechanisms for the implementation of an emotional reaction tohappened. The main goal of mourning is the fastest recovery of a person and the return of the opportunity to live and work normally, leaving what happened in the past. The procedure, the sequence of stages, is a natural defense mechanism that has appeared so that a person does not perceive the lost too tragically, which means that he can continue to live normally. To some extent, the sequence can be called a psychological multi-stage path in which a person moves from tragedy to a new reality.
Although the stages of mourning after the death of a loved one, divorce, abortion and other tragic events have been studied quite well, among non-specialists, not everyone has an idea of \u200b\u200bsuch a process. Professionals, in turn, know that not every person copes with what happened - the psyche of a particular person may not withstand the pressure. Grief becomes excessively intense and destroys a person from the inside. It is disproportionate to the cause that initiated the phenomenon. There are cases when grief accompanies a person for too long, which leads to the destruction of life.
So different, but so similar
As studies have shown, the stages of mourning at the death of a loved one, due to parting, the loss of a body part are the same for all people living in the same society. A nationality, a tribe, a narrow society are the conditions in which similar methods of coping with grief are formed, and often they are not recognized by people. In different cultures, the stages are somewhat different. Researchers have identified several stages and forms. The results of research and calculations of psychiatrists depend onwhat epoch was observed, what society was in the focus of attention.
If we consider some homogeneous society within a limited historical stage, all its representatives will have the same stages of struggle with grief. The intensity and duration of the process strongly depend on the characteristics of a particular person, human psychology.
On examples
As psychologists have discovered, almost everyone goes through a stage of grief that precedes loss. It is observed if a loved one is seriously ill, if family relations have become very bad. The person tries to prepare emotionally for the upcoming difficult event. It is at this stage that the universal stage of human mourning is observed - preliminary grief. In science, it was called anticipatory. This period is experienced by the person when there has been no real loss yet. The human psyche is designed in such a way that the preliminary grief begins in advance, so that it would be easier to endure the main difficult stage.
When loved ones die
According to scientists, all stages of mourning after the death of loved ones are phenomena due to culture and traditional social order. A person does not have such innate mental characteristics that would oblige him to experience this event. There are no biological mechanisms that oblige to feel grief because of such a reason. The reaction is completed when the person adapts to new conditions and can again function, feel safe, perceiving his own self and hisa person without constant awareness of the loss of someone.
Grieving is the norm of human culture, although individual deviations are possible. The reaction can be transformed into a pathological one. This violates human life and spoils the future of the person. A person faced with such a problem needs qualified psychological help and support.
About signs
Several typical phenomena are known that make it possible to suspect that a person alone cannot survive all the normal stages of mourning after death, separation or loss, and the person needs outside help. The first observation that allows one to suspect such a development of events is the impossibility of a person to talk about what happened without manifestations of acute grief, despite the large time interval that separates the current moment from what happened. If a similar event occurs in the life of another person, the person stuck in grief begins to experience what happened as their own misfortune. For example, a woman unable to overcome her grief over a failed pregnancy struggles with her friend's abortion as if it had happened to her.
It is possible to notice that there has been a failure in the stages of mourning, a person cannot cope, if he very often returns to the topic of the lost or to his lack of rights and opportunities to change life circumstances. So, for many years he tells everyone who is ready to listen about the difficult conditions in which he had to live, how early he had to part with his parents, what diseases he tormented,what losses took place.
Signs: what else?
If a loved one dies, a person who cannot cope with grief keeps his things for too long, and this goes beyond the reasonable. Some collect huge collages from photographs, which they literally pray for, while others completely preserve the room of the deceased in its original form, without allowing any changes. From the outside it looks like a museum. Having noticed this in the life of a loved one or friend, in order to help him cope with the loss, you should, if possible, recommend talking with a qualified psychotherapist, otherwise the person’s condition will gradually only get worse.
There are cases when, at some stage of mourning, a person began to show symptoms similar to those characteristic of a deceased loved one shortly before death. Psychologists talk about people who attend appointments and complain that they had previously experienced the death of a loved one due to a pulmonary disease, and at times they themselves suffocate, although the examination of the body demonstrates absolute he alth. This is possible, in particular, if the native died due to lung cancer. Even if the event happened several years ago, the person, if unable to cope with it, still feels grief, exists in a state of crisis and cannot figure out on his own what is happening. Often, working with a psychologist makes it possible to understand that the root cause of this condition is the fear of death. For example, if a person is at the same age as his loved one who died from a serious illness, the condition can be very serious. This is also observed in the presence of otherparallels.
Grief and its manifestations
At some stage of mourning, a person may suddenly decide to make radical changes. If these do not correspond to reality and the current situation, this indicates an inability to cope with grief. In some cases, the behavior becomes an attempt to escape from one's own feelings. There is a possibility of developing depression in a chronic form, accompanied by an oppressive feeling of guilt, against which the person loses the ability to respect himself. Some begin to imitate the deceased. Sometimes this happens unconsciously, a person does not see the reasons for such behavior, but it is still observed.
In some stages of mourning, uncontrolled impulses to self-destruction may appear. It is known that people who experience loss with difficulty tend to use tobacco and alcohol, narcotic products, some refuse food or eat too much, regularly find themselves in uncomfortable and dangerous circumstances, and harm themselves. Intense grief that cannot be de alt with initiates the death drive as the only obvious way to end all mental suffering.
Pathological mourning is a condition that persists for more than a year. In susceptible people, exacerbations usually form stably in the same season. Phobias, restrictive actions are frequent.
Do you need help?
Studying the different stages of mourning during parting, death, and other difficult situations made it possible to understand: to one degree or another, the above signs occurpractically everyone. In psychology, they introduced the norm of grief. The concept of it is based on statistical studies and observations of people over many decades. Normally, a person demonstrates a couple of the signs of the above, but if there are three or more of them, this is probably already a pathological condition. Much depends on national characteristics, family upbringing and other specific features that determine the culture of a person. The grief response is not innate, which is why it is so strongly determined by external circumstances.
To understand whether there is a pathological experience of some stage of mourning or a normal and natural state, it is worth contacting a specialist dealing with this particular issue. Not every psychologist is well versed in the features of grief. The person himself, immersed in this situation, is unable to distinguish pathology from the norm. His relatives also can not always assess what is happening adequately. The pathological process destroys human life, undermines he alth and complicates interpersonal contacts. Adaptation to society worsens.
Step by step
According to the theoretical work of the famous psychiatrist Kübler-Ross, there are five stages of mourning. The work in which she outlined her theory was published in 1969. First, a person denies what happened, then resentment arises in his heart, which over time is replaced by the desire for negotiations. It is replaced by depression, the result of which is the acceptance of what happened.
Each of these stages costsdetailed self-examination.
Denial
According to the works of Kübler-Ross, the stage of mourning that a person experiences first is denial. It is simply impossible to survive the loss without facing this stage. At first, a person denies information about what happened if it traumatizes his psyche. To some extent, a person can be compared to a stone. Many fail to comprehend how one can continue to live in such a state of shock. The habitual way of life instantly changes, the person is not ready for this, and everything familiar simply disappears. For example, if a serious incurable disease is diagnosed, a person convinces himself of a laboratory error, and if it became known about the death of a loved one, it seems as if the body was identified incorrectly and someone else died.
Denial is a period of dwelling outside the cruel reality. A person chooses for himself a more preferable variant of the development of the situation and remains in it. Denial, coupled with a state of shock, helps to overcome grief, to ease sadness. A person does not overload himself with emotions, does not accept grief and refuses it, but at the same time takes the first step towards the future. The shock state of denial is the first stage that protects a person from difficult experiences. When this period gradually comes to an end, the soul embarks on the path of healing. Feelings suppressed in the first step break through to the surface.
Anger
The second emotional stage of mourning is the anger that accompanies the transition from a fictional world of lack of loss to a cruel reality. It seems to a person that he was treated unfairly, he does not understand why he happened to be a victim of this situation. Some blame others, relatives, friends for what happened. The person does not understand how something like this could fall on her. If a person immersed in religion is forced to experience an event, he may doubt the divine essence, rightly asking why he did not get protection.
According to researchers of the human psyche, anger is an important and indispensable stage in the fight against grief, and it should not be skipped. The task of a person is to feel anger completely, to the maximum, to realize it as a force that connects with reality. The stronger the anger, the faster it will go away, the psyche will recover. Anger, anger, caused by resentment, is considered in psychology as constructive phenomena that allow healing to be achieved.
Trading
The third emotional stage of mourning is an attempt to bargain with this world. Very many people who find themselves in a difficult situation have the same thoughts: an attempt to appeal to a higher, omnipotent entity that would solve the problem, and in exchange for this offer some kind of service or resource. Some promise to become better, others to believe more actively, still others to never grumble about life again. Negotiations of this format allow you to maintain false hope in yourself. They give a person faith that someone from above can fix everything if he himself does something, changes something. Despite the fact that this hope is false, the step is important for a person and allows you to maintain the integrity of the psyche.
Depression
Works devoted to the stages of mourning, their characteristics, necessarily pay attention to this fourth stage, which is generally understood as the main form of grief. It so happened that in the minds of many of our contemporaries, grief and depression are practically equivalent words. This stereotype is due to the fact that it is depression from all of the above that seems to be a real emotion. The term denotes the state of a person who feels as if he was immersed in a void. It comes along with the realization of the end of the traumatic situation, the completion, the departure of the person.
Depression is the stage when you are most likely to make an attempt to end your life. Many describe their condition as a complete numbness of the senses, and life seems clouded and unclear. A person sees no reason to wake up in the morning, he has no desire to do something. The world seems too big, crushes and oppresses. This is that of the 5 stages of mourning, in which a person, suffering from what happened, does not want to be with other people nearby. She is not interested in talking. The dominant feeling is complete and utter hopelessness. Many people have suicidal thoughts. Often, in the fourth stage of the struggle with grief, a person thinks most of all about the meaning of life, not finding answers to his questions.
Acceptance
Of the 5 stages of mourning, the final one is acceptance. It is sometimes called confession. The person understands that what happened is irreversible and it will not work to change it, but agrees that everything will be fine with him. This step is accompaniedstabilization of the emotional state. The person returns to real life. Managed to come to terms with the new conditions. If grief is caused by the death of a loved one, a person understands that there is no way to return the deceased, but his own life continues, and this is normal. Realizing himself in order, a person does not consider what happened to be something good, but accepts what happened as a fact with which one can get used to. The fifth step of dealing with grief is a period of debugging your life, adjusting reality and yourself.
Psychologists, explaining the sequence, pay attention: in the life of any person there are good periods, there are dark days. They can tell which stage of mourning is characterized by deep sadness (depression), but they also assure that sooner or later it will be replaced by acceptance, followed by a positive life stage, and its duration is more significant and longer. Having come to terms with what happened, the person restores contacts with relatives and friends, and over time, she develops new relationships. Of course, the lost cannot be fully replaced, but life goes on, which means that something new, no less valuable, appears in it.
Grief: dire situation
As is known from the works describing the stages of mourning according to D. Bowlby, the loss of a loved one first leads to numbness, and this state lasts only a few hours for some, while others experience it for days and weeks. Then the person begins to yearn, and this leads to disorganization. Recovery from grief comes through reorganization. Any person must cope with grief, because sooner oreveryone has to go through it late, and recovery from this difficult condition is the key to a further full life.
As you can learn from nursing courses, there is one interesting feature in the stages of mourning, namely, the connection of the mechanism of grief itself with the fear of death inherent in a person. According to psychologists, the fear of this event is a very important factor that moves a person, and it is so strong that the person tries to hide it from himself. Many are equally afraid of death and strong emotional upheavals. If a person is subject to experiences and those acquire special strength, the person himself or with the help of relatives finds himself at the doctor's office, literally begging to prescribe some strong pills, just to leave emotions out of the field of sensations.
According to psychiatrists, this is a categorically incorrect approach. If there is a situation of difficult experiences, especially in the event of the death of a loved one, it is necessary to fully experience grief, try to do it as correctly as possible. The mechanisms described above allow anyone to cope with a loss, no matter how severe it may be. If you refuse the described sequence, "go out of the way" at some stage, the consequence may be lifelong depression.
Responsible Approach: The Importance of Grief and Dealing with It
By the way, before even practiced special rites designed specifically for mourning. Traditional societies support the experience. And today, in some nationalities, mourners are invited to say goodbye to the deceased. These wires make it easythe experience of grief and victory over it.
The stage of the struggle with grief, called petrification, does not surprise or doubt anyone. At this step, a person resembles a robot, and his emotions, if expressed, are weak. Normally, the state in the event of the death of a loved one lasts no more than three days. Do not disturb the sufferer until the phase passes on its own. If it drags on for more than three days, you can consult a psychologist.
Farewell to a person: features
After the stage of petrification, the acceptance of the death of a loved one is going through a phase of sobs. Normally, a person suffers for about a week. There is no need to stop him, and there is no point in reassuring him. You need to let the person cry, to get rid of emotions. They will be replaced by depression. At this step, the person is inert and yearning. The duration of the stage is a little over a month. Many believe that the sufferer should be entertained and distracted. It is precisely the step of depression that causes the most doubts among others. Others condemn such behavior, considering it unreasonable. Psychologists assure: you just need to support the person and give her peace, be present nearby, hug, but nothing more. If depression is not prevented, it will soon be replaced by mourning, after which the death of a loved one will be accepted and experienced, and reality will continue to develop.
