The Truth about Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss

The five stages of grief are so deeply imbedded in our culture that no American can escape them. Every time we experience loss—a personal or national one—we hear them recited: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stages are invoked to explain everything from how we will recover from the death of a loved one to a sudden environmental catastrophe or to the trading away of a basketball star. But the stunning fact is that there is no validity to the stages that were proposed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross more than forty years ago.

In The Truth About Grief, Ruth Davis Konigsberg shows how the five stages were based on no science but nonetheless became national myth. She explains that current research paints a completely different picture of how we actually grieve. It turns out people are pretty well programmed to get over loss. Grieving should not be a strictly regimented process, she argues; nor is the best remedy for pain always to examine it or express it at great length. The strength of Konigsbergs message is its liberating force: there is no manual to grieving; you can do it freestyle.

In the course of clarifying our picture of grief, Konigsberg tells its history, revealing how social and cultural forces have shaped our approach to loss from the Gettysburg Address through 9/11. She examines how the American version of grief has spread to the rest of the world and contrasts it with the interpretations of other cultures—like the Chinese, who focus more on their bond with the deceased than on the emotional impact of bereavement. Konigsberg also offers a close look at Kübler-Ross herself: who she borrowed from to come up with her theory, and how she went from being a pioneering psychiatrist to a New Age healer who sought the guidance of two spirits named Salem and Pedro and declared that death did not exist.

Deeply researched and provocative, The Truth About Grief draws on history, culture, and science to upend our countrys most entrenched beliefs about its most common experience.

"Veteran journalist Konigsberg offers a spot-on critique of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's seminal theory--the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This 'staged' approach, Konigsberg argues convincingly, is unscientific, tends to assume more prolonged mourning, and 'completely omits positive emotions that are also integral to the experience of grief.' Konigsberg also looks at various scientific studies on how people cope with grief, noting, 'On average, those who got help experienced no less distress nor recovered more quickly than those who didn't.' She maintains that people cope with grief thanks largely to the human capacity for resilience, relying heavily on the work of psychologist George Bonanno, though Konigsberg acknowledges that this isn't the case for those who experience the intractable grief that Freud called 'melancholia.' Konigsberg makes few distinctions among different mourning situations and among various therapeutic approaches (e.g., individual versus group treatment; long- versus short-term counseling; cognitive-behavioral versus psychodynamic treatment). In general, she has researched her subject, writes clearly and engagingly, and uncovers a host of interesting facts. Despite a few conceptual flaws, this book is well worth reading. (Jan.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

In this illuminating account of how we grieve, Ruth Davis Konigsberg reveals that everything we thought we knew about confronting loss is wrong.

RUTH DAVIS KONIGSBERG first heard about Elisabeth KÜbler-Ross’s five stages in a high school psychology class. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she began a career in magazine journalism and worked as an editor for New York and Glamour. She has written for numerous publications, often about psychology. Konigsberg lives in Pelham, New York, with her husband and their two children.