Arthur Brooks

The most famous study of grief comes from the Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who wrote On Death and Dying, a very, very famous book that has actually taken a lot of criticism over the years because it's not perfect.

I'll talk about that a little bit, probably more in a minute.

But she did fundamental work in this book on death and dying where she talked about the fact that people who are experiencing grief, they typically pass through five stages.

This is really interesting because, you know, the idea that there's an algorithm to grief, it just shows how funny we are as people, right?

People feel uniquely unfortunate when they're grieving, but they don't behave uniquely is what Elizabeth Kubler-Ross found.

She was studying people who learned they were going to die.

I'm gonna die that kind of thing by the way you're gonna die so am I but it was they were given a death sentence for whatever reason the cancer diagnosis that was terminal or whatever but it applies to all sorts of grief you know somebody dies that you're close to it's the same basic process the five stages are when something creates grief in your life the first thing you naturally do is deny it like no it can't be real it can't be real no no it can't be real

that goes by pretty quickly and it goes into anger or you're angry that this is befalling you.

The universe has treated you unfairly.

The third stage is bargaining.

It's weird because people will actually bargain and say, okay, God, or whomever, if you'll take this away, then I'll behave in a particular way.

And they'll fantasize often about what if they actually could change something?

What would I give?

They'll say, part of the bargaining will be like, what would I give to not have this happen?

And they'll be like, people will say this all the time when they're in the bargaining phase of grief.

i would literally give everything i own if i had not incurred that loss to not incur that loss that's evidence of this kind of bargaining even though they realize they can't do it they're still thinking in that way because that's a natural part of the cognitive algorithm of grief the fourth is when they is just when when sadness comes in when there's this activity of the part of the limbic system that that experiences affective pain is there

And last but not least is acceptance, acceptance, where you accept that this is actually going to happen.

Newer research has suggested that not everybody goes through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression in the same order.

And furthermore, that they actually go by pretty quickly for most people.

And the newer research shows that most people get to acceptance pretty fast when there's something like this.