Grief Is Messy, Not Sequential: Challenging the Stages Narrative
The idea of “stages of grief” is so widely accepted that many people assume it’s a medically established fact. You’ll hear people say things like “I’m in the anger stage” or “you’re still in denial,” as if grief follows a predictable, universal sequence. But much like other popular psychological frameworks, this model is often misunderstood—and far less scientifically grounded than people think.
From: An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief
JAMA. 2007;297(7):716-723. doi:10.1001/jama.297.7.716
The concept comes from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who introduced the five stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. What’s frequently overlooked is that her work was based on interviews with terminally ill patients facing their own deaths, not people grieving the loss of others. Even Kübler-Ross herself later clarified that these stages were never meant to be a rigid sequence, nor a universal roadmap for everyone’s emotional experience.
Before her, earlier theories of grief and mourning described emotional processes, but they didn't have stage structure. Sigmund Freud, in Mourning and Melancholia (1917), described grief as a process of gradually detaching emotional energy from the deceased—not stages, but a psychological process. John Bowlby, working in attachment theory, later proposed phases of grief (such as numbness, yearning, disorganization, and reorganization). These are sometimes remembered as “four stages,” but they were never meant to be rigid or universal, and they came around the same era or slightly after Kübler-Ross.
Over time, however, the idea was simplified, expanded (sometimes into “seven stages”), and widely popularized in media, therapy culture, and self-help spaces. It became a kind of emotional template—something people expected themselves and others to follow. The problem is that this transformation turned a descriptive observation into something closer to a prescriptive rule.
From a scientific standpoint, the evidence simply doesn’t support the idea that grief unfolds in neat, ordered stages. Research in psychology shows that grief is highly variable: people experience different emotions, in different intensities, in different orders—or sometimes not at all. Some individuals may feel acceptance early on. Others may never experience certain “stages” like anger or bargaining. Emotional responses can also overlap, repeat, or shift unpredictably over time. In short, grief does not behave like a checklist.
Because of this, many psychologists consider the stage model to be overly simplistic and not evidence-based as a universal theory of grieving. It doesn’t reliably predict how people will feel, nor does it capture the complexity of real-life loss. More modern approaches to grief focus instead on processes—like meaning-making, continuing bonds with the deceased, or oscillating between coping and emotional confrontation—rather than fixed stages.
The real harm of the “stages of grief” idea shows up in how people judge themselves. When you believe there’s a correct sequence, it’s easy to start asking: Why am I not feeling what I’m supposed to feel? Why am I stuck? Why did I skip a stage? That kind of thinking can create unnecessary anxiety on top of an already painful experience. Instead of processing grief, people may start evaluating whether they’re doing it “right.”
It can also affect how others respond to someone who is grieving. Friends, family, or even professionals might unintentionally impose expectations—assuming a person should be “moving on” or entering a new stage at a certain time. This can lead to pressure, misunderstanding, or even invalidation of very real emotions that don’t fit the model.
Grief is not linear, and it is not standardized. It’s shaped by your relationship to the person, the circumstances of the loss, your cultural background, your mental health, and countless other factors. Some people cry intensely; others feel numb. Some revisit memories constantly; others avoid them. Some find moments of peace early on; others take years to reach anything resembling acceptance. All of these responses can be completely normal.
A more helpful way to understand grief is to see it as a fluid, evolving experience rather than a sequence to complete. Emotions may come in waves, fade, return, and transform over time. There is no universal timeline, and there is no “correct” emotional path. Letting go of the stage framework can actually make space for a more honest, individualized process.
Ultimately, the pressure to fit into predefined stages can do more harm than good. Grief isn’t something you progress through like levels in a game—it’s something you live with, adapt to, and gradually integrate into your life. If your experience doesn’t match a textbook model, that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means you’re human, and your grief is your own.
References and Reading:
Avis, K. A., Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (2021). Stages of grief portrayed on the internet: A systematic analysis and critical appraisal. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 772696. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.772696
Maciejewski, P. K., Zhang, B., Block, S. D., & Prigerson, H. G. (2007). An empirical examination of the stage theory of grief. JAMA, 297(7), 716–723. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.297.7.716
Silver, R. C., & Wortman, C. B. (2007). The stage theory of grief. JAMA, 297(24), 2692–2694. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.297.24.2692-a
Stroebe, M., Schut, H., & Boerner, K. (2017). Cautioning health-care professionals: Bereaved persons are misguided through the stages of grief. OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying, 74(4), 455–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222817691870
O’Connor, M.-F. (2022). The grieving brain: The surprising science of how we learn from love and loss. HarperOne.
Bonanno, G. A. (2009). The other side of sadness: What the new science of bereavement tells us about life after loss. Basic Books.
Hone, L. (2017). Resilient grieving: Finding strength and embracing life after a loss that changes everything. Penguin Random House New Zealand.