Analysis Of Kubler-Ross Stage Theory
Steps to living without you; Can Kubler-Ross’ stage theory help me to understand, and work more effectively with grief?
This assignment has been by far the most difficult to date, I have struggled intensely with my own personal grief and how I am able to relate this to theory. I have found that though many books on this subject are in-depth and informative I have not been able to connect to the theory due to the over whelming emotion I have felt around this topic. Therefore the biggest challenge in writing this assignment has been for me to manage my own profound feelings of grief while trying offer a professional and objective view on the theoretical works of this subject.
Introduction …show more content…
Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel in response to an individual’s own terminal illness or to the death of something or someone you love. Grieving is a personal and highly individual experience and I feel that there is no wrong way or right way to grieve. In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote “on death and dying”, in this book she proposed the five stages of normal grief. These five stages of grief were based on her studies of patients facing terminal illness, but over the years have been generalized to other types of losses, such as the death of a loved one. Her theory has been the framework to many others understandings and writings about the process of grief.
It is for this reason I have chosen her theoretical model to explore in my assignment. I will look at each stage in this proposed theory from both a personal and professional view. My intentions are to offer a personal insight into my own grief, and were I feel this model fits with my grieving process. Also to reflect on my professional practice and whether this model of theory has helped me with my client work.
The five stages of grief
Though I will write these five stages in the order written by Kubler-Ross she makes it very clear that they are not linear and not everyone will go through all of the five stages, while some stages might be revisited (1970). It is also my opinion that not all of these stages are equal in their experience.
Denial;
For many this is regarded as the first stage of grieving, a natural response that carries us through the first wave of pain. Denial is not meant in the literal meaning, you do not know that your loved one has died. It is more symbolic, you cannot believe that they will not walk through the door any minute (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005). When life makes no sense, we go numb. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. It is a refusal to accept facts or reality; it is a perfectly natural defence mechanism.
Anger;
Anger is felt to be a necessary part of the healing process; it does not have to be logical or valid for it has no limits. The anger may be aimed at ourselves, or towards others, especially those close to us. We may be angry with the deceased for leaving us behind or with the doctor for not saving our loved one. No matter where the anger is directed, the person will often feel guilty for feeling angry and this then makes them angrier. Anger comes from pain, it is strength and it can be an anchor giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss.
“It is sometimes a helpful response, one that should not be stifled” (Kessler, 2007, p. 87).
Bargaining;
“Bargaining can be an important reprieve from pain that occupies one 's grief” (Kubler-Ross
& Kessler, 2005 p, 19). Bargaining is a very personal and individual stage of grief; it allows us
to believe that order may be restored to the chaos. It allows us the illusion of control, it
gives us momentary relief. Bargaining changes over time, if a loved one is dying we might
bargain that they be saved or that we die instead of them. When we have accepted their
inevitable death we may bargain that death be painless. After death the bargaining changes
again, it moves from the present in to the future.
We may ask that we see our loved ones
again in heaven, or to be given a break from the heart ache of tragedies and suffering within
the family. As we move through the bargaining process our mind realises the tragic reality
that our loved one is truly gone forever.
Depression;
Depression after a loss is often seen by society as being unnatural. People want to fix you, to
snap you out of this state. Geoffrey Gorer recognises this as he writes “Giving way to grief is
stigmatized as morbid, unhealthy, and demoralizing” (1965, p. 130). Depression may make
you feel empty or heavy as the reality of the grief enters your life. Life feels pointless. The
dark feeling of depression weighs you down, making you withdraw from life. It can make it
hard to get out of bed in the morning or make you question if there is any point in going on.
"In grief, depression is a way for nature to keep us protected by shutting down the nervous
system so that we can adapt to something we feel we can handle" (Kubler-Ross & Kessler,
2005, p. 21). It is important to remember that depression is a normal response to the loss of
a loved
one.
Acceptance;
Again this stage is very personal and individual, varying largely on the person’s situation.
Acceptance is not about being "all right" with what has happened, but accepting the reality
that our loved one has physically gone. This stage is about recognising that this new reality
is now permanent. "We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it.
We learn to live with it" (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p. 25). As we begin to accept our new
reality, we learn to live again; we have more good days than bad days. This can often
provoke the feel that we are betraying our loved ones. We can never replace our loved ones
but we can make new meaningful friendships and even love again. But first we must learn to
reorganize roles, both for ourselves and for others. We can begin to live, and even enjoy our
life again, if we are able to accept our new reality and give grief its time.
My personal journey through grief
As I have written this assignment I have been consciously aware that it is nearing the anniversary of my daughter’s death. This has made me more aware of my grieving process around this time. Ten years on and I am still ebbing and flowing around the many stages of grief, revisiting the feelings I felt shortly after her death. Though most of the time I am able to enjoy the life I now have and accept the reality of my daughter’s death. I have noticed that during times of anniversaries and birthdays I become overwhelmed with grief. I have recognised myself revisiting the stages of grief as time gets closer to that awful date.
At the start of this assignment I was struggling with the concept of grief. I was adamant that the theory did not fit in with my personal experience. It was as I began to write that I realised that my unwillingness to relate with the theory was because I was pushing against the process of my own grief. I was angry, so incredibly angry. All the books I read seemed to lack a human side to them, where was the feeling, the emotion. I could not understand how the authors of these books could call themselves ‘experts’ on grief when they lacked basic compassion. Despite their intelligence and well informed knowledge around the framework of grief, their writing seemed to be without any real depth. I felt they had no idea what it was like to really grieve, to lose someone you loved with all of your heart and then be confronted with feelings around your own mortality. (Yalom, 1991)
After a very insightful tutorial I realised that what I thought was my opinion of these books was really nothing more than the anger I felt around my daughter’s death. I was angry that the feelings I felt around the death of my little girl could be summed up in a book. I agonised over my feelings of grief. How can my love for my daughter, that is so passionate and special, be grieved for so normally? I was fuelling my own anger and tormenting myself with the belief that I had not loved her as much as I thought I had, for I have been able to move on with my life.
I recognised this behaviour to be what Worden called “Task II: To Process the Pain of Grief”.
I have come to understand that over the years I have shut off the feelings of pain surrounding my daughter’s death due to reactions I received from others in the early days of my grief. Back then my pain was so overwhelming it manifested itself physically; I felt I had no control over my body or mind. Parkes recognises the depth of this pain when he writes
“Love is the most profound source of pleasure in our lives while the loss of those whom we love is the most profound source of pain” (2009, p.1)
My family and friends found it hard to witness the effects of my pain, so they proposed medical intervention to help with my suffering. My GP thought that the best thing for me was corrective therapy, so I was referred to a CBT therapist. There it was established that most of my pain was connected to the guilt I felt around the event of my daughter’s death. I was taught to challenge this way of thinking by “Disputing negative cognitions”, the process of developing healthy and realistic cognitions (Edelman, 1234).
During these sessions I was taught that I have complete control over my thoughts and feelings. If I felt that the pain was becoming to unbearable I could “postpone” responding to it or even thinking about it by make a mental shopping list, thereby giving myself time to calm down and rationally evaluate the way I am behaving. As I reflect on this now I realise that I often use this method to stop myself from feeling any sort of pain, and because I do not let the pain and sadness in it manifests itself as anger. Bowlby (1981) believed that if we avoid all conscious grieving we would carry the pain of grief with us throughout our life, eventually causing us to break down with some sort of depression. I can relate this belief to my own personal grieving experience.
As I look back on the earlier days of my grieving experience, shortly after the death of my daughter, I able to recognise the presence of both Kubler- Ross’s “stage theory” and
Worden’s “Task theory”. I have set a place for my daughter at the dinner table, searched for her in the playground; I have prayed to a god I don’t believe in to reunite us someday in heaven. I have displayed anger at the injustice of her death, but I have also found meaning to her death by adjusting to a world without her in it. Though I believe that both theories offer a valuable insight into the framework of grief, I feel that my personal experience of grief does not fit into either one or the other but lends itself to both and many other theories as well.
Grief and my client work
In my client work I deal a lot with grief, for I work with both rape victims and survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The type of loses that are faced by this client group are of a very intimate nature e.g. the loss of freedom, individuality, identity. I have found that the stage theory of grief lends itself well to this client work. Though my entire client group, upon entering therapy, are stuck in what Viktor Frankl (2004) terms “Existential vacuum”, I am able to recognise their process in at least one of the 5 stages of grief.
I have noticed that with most of my rape client’s they enter therapy in either the denial or bargaining stage. It is hard for them to accept the facts and reality of what has happened to them. It is quite normal for them to approach therapy in a state of shock or numbness. They often blame themselves, believing that they have encouraged it in some way. I have known clients beg the forgiveness of their own actions, making statements like; my skirt was too short; I had too much to drink. They pray that their own children do not suffer for their
“vulnerable stupidity”. It can often take quite a few sessions for the client to see the reality of what has happened to them, when they do they tend to alternate between the stages of anger and depression. When a client reaches this stage they often ask, why me? Or blame their friends or partner for not being there to stop it. These are all natural responses to grieving a loss.
But not all clients work in the same way; I have experienced clients who accept very quickly the reality of their situation. Murray Parkes suggests that this is because “people who grow up in secure relationships with their parents experience less intense distress after bereavement in their adult life than those from insecure relationships” (2009). I agree with this statement, as I have noticed that clients who move to acceptance in a short space of time often have a secure personal network. They find comfort in the knowledge that their experience was not personal and has no bearing on them as a person. It is a relieve for them to accept the notion that the perpetrator would of raped anyway. I have heard these clients say things like; “while it was me it was not some young girl who could not have coped as well as I have” or “ they may have violated my body but they have taken nothing from the real me”. I have heard many times that there is strength in pain and that is what I hear in these statements.
With my sexual abuse survivors I notice a different pattern; they quite often enter therapy
stuck in either the anger or depression stage of grief. By the time these clients access
therapy they have lived many years with their loss of self. They are angry, not only at their
abuser but with the world around them too. Depression is a feeling all too common for
these clients’. They often feel alone and unloved. They have little self-esteem or self-worth,
and struggle with adult relationships. I feel that these feelings are mirrored by Kubler-Ross
& Kessler as they wrote “We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering,
perhaps, if there is any point going on” (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p. 20).
It can take many sessions, often years, for a client to fully grief their loss. Acceptance is not a
stage this client group reaches quickly, if at all. For this type of abuse is personal and often
takes place over a long period of time. They are faced with shame and guilt, forced to live a
lie for most of their childhood. Their pain is both physical and mental; and affects every
aspect of their lives. At times their pain and anger can be so intense that they become
incapable of thinking about situations rationally. For this client group grief can often
become complicated.
Conclusion
Over the course of writing this assignment I have come to the understanding that I have been through the process of mourning but never truly grieved the loss of my daughter’s life.
I have developed coping strategies over the years to keep me from feeling, keeping busy by
“doing” is one I have practiced in nearly every day for 10 years. Now I feel it is time for me to learn to feel. The only way I believe this to be possible, is for me is to acknowledge the pain and sadness I feel in losing the life of my daughter. I do not believe that time heals or lessens the pain of loss in any way; only that it gives you the space to adjust to a new reality.
It is my belief that the 5 stages of grief, along with many other theories, offer both the grieving person and the professional body a profound and valuable insight into the framework of grief. But it is also my belief that they are only guidelines in understanding what I believe is a unique and individual experience. Kubler-Ross herself never intended for these stages to be a rigid framework and in her last book before her death she wrote: “They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives.” (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p.7)
References
Bowlby, J. (1981). Attachment and Loss: Volume3. Loss Sadness and Depression, Penguin Books Ltd, London, England.
Edelman, S. (2006). Change Your Thinking with CBT, The Random House Group Ltd, London, England.
Frankl, V. (2004). Man’s Search for Meaning, The Random House Group Ltd, London, England.
Gorer, G. (1965). Death, Grief, and Mourning in Contemporary Britain, Cresset Press, London.
Kessler, D. (2007). The Needs of the Dying, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, USA.
Kubler-Ross, E. (1970). On Death and Dying, Tavistock Publications Limited, Great Britain.
Kubler-Ross, E. & Kessler, D. (2005). On Grief and Grieving, Simon & Schuster Ltd, London, UK.
Murray Parkes, C. (2009). Love and Loss: The Roots of Grief and its Complications, Routledge, East Sussex, England.
Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy, Springer Publishing Company, LLC, New York.
Yalom, I.D. (1991). Love’s Executioner, Penguin Books Ltd, London, England.
This assignment has been by far the most difficult to date, I have struggled intensely with my own personal grief and how I am able to relate this to theory. I have found that though many books on this subject are in-depth and informative I have not been able to connect to the theory due to the over whelming emotion I have felt around this topic. Therefore the biggest challenge in writing this assignment has been for me to manage my own profound feelings of grief while trying offer a professional and objective view on the theoretical works of this subject.
Introduction …show more content…
Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel in response to an individual’s own terminal illness or to the death of something or someone you love. Grieving is a personal and highly individual experience and I feel that there is no wrong way or right way to grieve. In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote “on death and dying”, in this book she proposed the five stages of normal grief. These five stages of grief were based on her studies of patients facing terminal illness, but over the years have been generalized to other types of losses, such as the death of a loved one. Her theory has been the framework to many others understandings and writings about the process of grief.
It is for this reason I have chosen her theoretical model to explore in my assignment. I will look at each stage in this proposed theory from both a personal and professional view. My intentions are to offer a personal insight into my own grief, and were I feel this model fits with my grieving process. Also to reflect on my professional practice and whether this model of theory has helped me with my client work.
The five stages of grief
Though I will write these five stages in the order written by Kubler-Ross she makes it very clear that they are not linear and not everyone will go through all of the five stages, while some stages might be revisited (1970). It is also my opinion that not all of these stages are equal in their experience.
Denial;
For many this is regarded as the first stage of grieving, a natural response that carries us through the first wave of pain. Denial is not meant in the literal meaning, you do not know that your loved one has died. It is more symbolic, you cannot believe that they will not walk through the door any minute (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005). When life makes no sense, we go numb. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. It is a refusal to accept facts or reality; it is a perfectly natural defence mechanism.
Anger;
Anger is felt to be a necessary part of the healing process; it does not have to be logical or valid for it has no limits. The anger may be aimed at ourselves, or towards others, especially those close to us. We may be angry with the deceased for leaving us behind or with the doctor for not saving our loved one. No matter where the anger is directed, the person will often feel guilty for feeling angry and this then makes them angrier. Anger comes from pain, it is strength and it can be an anchor giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss.
“It is sometimes a helpful response, one that should not be stifled” (Kessler, 2007, p. 87).
Bargaining;
“Bargaining can be an important reprieve from pain that occupies one 's grief” (Kubler-Ross
& Kessler, 2005 p, 19). Bargaining is a very personal and individual stage of grief; it allows us
to believe that order may be restored to the chaos. It allows us the illusion of control, it
gives us momentary relief. Bargaining changes over time, if a loved one is dying we might
bargain that they be saved or that we die instead of them. When we have accepted their
inevitable death we may bargain that death be painless. After death the bargaining changes
again, it moves from the present in to the future.
We may ask that we see our loved ones
again in heaven, or to be given a break from the heart ache of tragedies and suffering within
the family. As we move through the bargaining process our mind realises the tragic reality
that our loved one is truly gone forever.
Depression;
Depression after a loss is often seen by society as being unnatural. People want to fix you, to
snap you out of this state. Geoffrey Gorer recognises this as he writes “Giving way to grief is
stigmatized as morbid, unhealthy, and demoralizing” (1965, p. 130). Depression may make
you feel empty or heavy as the reality of the grief enters your life. Life feels pointless. The
dark feeling of depression weighs you down, making you withdraw from life. It can make it
hard to get out of bed in the morning or make you question if there is any point in going on.
"In grief, depression is a way for nature to keep us protected by shutting down the nervous
system so that we can adapt to something we feel we can handle" (Kubler-Ross & Kessler,
2005, p. 21). It is important to remember that depression is a normal response to the loss of
a loved
one.
Acceptance;
Again this stage is very personal and individual, varying largely on the person’s situation.
Acceptance is not about being "all right" with what has happened, but accepting the reality
that our loved one has physically gone. This stage is about recognising that this new reality
is now permanent. "We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it.
We learn to live with it" (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p. 25). As we begin to accept our new
reality, we learn to live again; we have more good days than bad days. This can often
provoke the feel that we are betraying our loved ones. We can never replace our loved ones
but we can make new meaningful friendships and even love again. But first we must learn to
reorganize roles, both for ourselves and for others. We can begin to live, and even enjoy our
life again, if we are able to accept our new reality and give grief its time.
My personal journey through grief
As I have written this assignment I have been consciously aware that it is nearing the anniversary of my daughter’s death. This has made me more aware of my grieving process around this time. Ten years on and I am still ebbing and flowing around the many stages of grief, revisiting the feelings I felt shortly after her death. Though most of the time I am able to enjoy the life I now have and accept the reality of my daughter’s death. I have noticed that during times of anniversaries and birthdays I become overwhelmed with grief. I have recognised myself revisiting the stages of grief as time gets closer to that awful date.
At the start of this assignment I was struggling with the concept of grief. I was adamant that the theory did not fit in with my personal experience. It was as I began to write that I realised that my unwillingness to relate with the theory was because I was pushing against the process of my own grief. I was angry, so incredibly angry. All the books I read seemed to lack a human side to them, where was the feeling, the emotion. I could not understand how the authors of these books could call themselves ‘experts’ on grief when they lacked basic compassion. Despite their intelligence and well informed knowledge around the framework of grief, their writing seemed to be without any real depth. I felt they had no idea what it was like to really grieve, to lose someone you loved with all of your heart and then be confronted with feelings around your own mortality. (Yalom, 1991)
After a very insightful tutorial I realised that what I thought was my opinion of these books was really nothing more than the anger I felt around my daughter’s death. I was angry that the feelings I felt around the death of my little girl could be summed up in a book. I agonised over my feelings of grief. How can my love for my daughter, that is so passionate and special, be grieved for so normally? I was fuelling my own anger and tormenting myself with the belief that I had not loved her as much as I thought I had, for I have been able to move on with my life.
I recognised this behaviour to be what Worden called “Task II: To Process the Pain of Grief”.
I have come to understand that over the years I have shut off the feelings of pain surrounding my daughter’s death due to reactions I received from others in the early days of my grief. Back then my pain was so overwhelming it manifested itself physically; I felt I had no control over my body or mind. Parkes recognises the depth of this pain when he writes
“Love is the most profound source of pleasure in our lives while the loss of those whom we love is the most profound source of pain” (2009, p.1)
My family and friends found it hard to witness the effects of my pain, so they proposed medical intervention to help with my suffering. My GP thought that the best thing for me was corrective therapy, so I was referred to a CBT therapist. There it was established that most of my pain was connected to the guilt I felt around the event of my daughter’s death. I was taught to challenge this way of thinking by “Disputing negative cognitions”, the process of developing healthy and realistic cognitions (Edelman, 1234).
During these sessions I was taught that I have complete control over my thoughts and feelings. If I felt that the pain was becoming to unbearable I could “postpone” responding to it or even thinking about it by make a mental shopping list, thereby giving myself time to calm down and rationally evaluate the way I am behaving. As I reflect on this now I realise that I often use this method to stop myself from feeling any sort of pain, and because I do not let the pain and sadness in it manifests itself as anger. Bowlby (1981) believed that if we avoid all conscious grieving we would carry the pain of grief with us throughout our life, eventually causing us to break down with some sort of depression. I can relate this belief to my own personal grieving experience.
As I look back on the earlier days of my grieving experience, shortly after the death of my daughter, I able to recognise the presence of both Kubler- Ross’s “stage theory” and
Worden’s “Task theory”. I have set a place for my daughter at the dinner table, searched for her in the playground; I have prayed to a god I don’t believe in to reunite us someday in heaven. I have displayed anger at the injustice of her death, but I have also found meaning to her death by adjusting to a world without her in it. Though I believe that both theories offer a valuable insight into the framework of grief, I feel that my personal experience of grief does not fit into either one or the other but lends itself to both and many other theories as well.
Grief and my client work
In my client work I deal a lot with grief, for I work with both rape victims and survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The type of loses that are faced by this client group are of a very intimate nature e.g. the loss of freedom, individuality, identity. I have found that the stage theory of grief lends itself well to this client work. Though my entire client group, upon entering therapy, are stuck in what Viktor Frankl (2004) terms “Existential vacuum”, I am able to recognise their process in at least one of the 5 stages of grief.
I have noticed that with most of my rape client’s they enter therapy in either the denial or bargaining stage. It is hard for them to accept the facts and reality of what has happened to them. It is quite normal for them to approach therapy in a state of shock or numbness. They often blame themselves, believing that they have encouraged it in some way. I have known clients beg the forgiveness of their own actions, making statements like; my skirt was too short; I had too much to drink. They pray that their own children do not suffer for their
“vulnerable stupidity”. It can often take quite a few sessions for the client to see the reality of what has happened to them, when they do they tend to alternate between the stages of anger and depression. When a client reaches this stage they often ask, why me? Or blame their friends or partner for not being there to stop it. These are all natural responses to grieving a loss.
But not all clients work in the same way; I have experienced clients who accept very quickly the reality of their situation. Murray Parkes suggests that this is because “people who grow up in secure relationships with their parents experience less intense distress after bereavement in their adult life than those from insecure relationships” (2009). I agree with this statement, as I have noticed that clients who move to acceptance in a short space of time often have a secure personal network. They find comfort in the knowledge that their experience was not personal and has no bearing on them as a person. It is a relieve for them to accept the notion that the perpetrator would of raped anyway. I have heard these clients say things like; “while it was me it was not some young girl who could not have coped as well as I have” or “ they may have violated my body but they have taken nothing from the real me”. I have heard many times that there is strength in pain and that is what I hear in these statements.
With my sexual abuse survivors I notice a different pattern; they quite often enter therapy
stuck in either the anger or depression stage of grief. By the time these clients access
therapy they have lived many years with their loss of self. They are angry, not only at their
abuser but with the world around them too. Depression is a feeling all too common for
these clients’. They often feel alone and unloved. They have little self-esteem or self-worth,
and struggle with adult relationships. I feel that these feelings are mirrored by Kubler-Ross
& Kessler as they wrote “We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering,
perhaps, if there is any point going on” (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p. 20).
It can take many sessions, often years, for a client to fully grief their loss. Acceptance is not a
stage this client group reaches quickly, if at all. For this type of abuse is personal and often
takes place over a long period of time. They are faced with shame and guilt, forced to live a
lie for most of their childhood. Their pain is both physical and mental; and affects every
aspect of their lives. At times their pain and anger can be so intense that they become
incapable of thinking about situations rationally. For this client group grief can often
become complicated.
Conclusion
Over the course of writing this assignment I have come to the understanding that I have been through the process of mourning but never truly grieved the loss of my daughter’s life.
I have developed coping strategies over the years to keep me from feeling, keeping busy by
“doing” is one I have practiced in nearly every day for 10 years. Now I feel it is time for me to learn to feel. The only way I believe this to be possible, is for me is to acknowledge the pain and sadness I feel in losing the life of my daughter. I do not believe that time heals or lessens the pain of loss in any way; only that it gives you the space to adjust to a new reality.
It is my belief that the 5 stages of grief, along with many other theories, offer both the grieving person and the professional body a profound and valuable insight into the framework of grief. But it is also my belief that they are only guidelines in understanding what I believe is a unique and individual experience. Kubler-Ross herself never intended for these stages to be a rigid framework and in her last book before her death she wrote: “They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives.” (Kubler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p.7)
References
Bowlby, J. (1981). Attachment and Loss: Volume3. Loss Sadness and Depression, Penguin Books Ltd, London, England.
Edelman, S. (2006). Change Your Thinking with CBT, The Random House Group Ltd, London, England.
Frankl, V. (2004). Man’s Search for Meaning, The Random House Group Ltd, London, England.
Gorer, G. (1965). Death, Grief, and Mourning in Contemporary Britain, Cresset Press, London.
Kessler, D. (2007). The Needs of the Dying, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, USA.
Kubler-Ross, E. (1970). On Death and Dying, Tavistock Publications Limited, Great Britain.
Kubler-Ross, E. & Kessler, D. (2005). On Grief and Grieving, Simon & Schuster Ltd, London, UK.
Murray Parkes, C. (2009). Love and Loss: The Roots of Grief and its Complications, Routledge, East Sussex, England.
Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy, Springer Publishing Company, LLC, New York.
Yalom, I.D. (1991). Love’s Executioner, Penguin Books Ltd, London, England.