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Archive 1

Merger with On Death and Dying

I agree that the two articles should be merged. Though the theory is applicable to other traumatic events, it was originally outlined by Kubler-Ross in the book "On Death and Dying." Noting in two separate articles is redundant. Perhaps a single article on “The Five Stage Grief Process” could include not only the information about the original author and book, but also how the theory has evolved and is now interpreted in the social sciences. --User:nikehrlich@comcast.net 18:32, 07 November 2005 (UTC)


I disagree with the merge recomendation on the premise that this article pertains to more than death/dying; it is applicable whenever a large (and traumatic) change occurs in one's life. --Astronouth7303 02:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the merge into one article called something like "The Five Stage Greif Process" since these two things are so closely associated.

I agree with the merge as well. I was searching for the stages of grief and wanted to know in what year they were introduced. That information is found only on the other page. The merge is a good idea

Merged. - Brian Kendig 18:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

wifiky!

The description of the stages is very non-wikipedia-ish. "the f' you stage"?? And the example is "this isn't fucking happening to me"? I can't believe that the person who wrote that was being serious. I'd add the corresponding tag but I still don't learn how to do it... --164.77.106.168 18:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[user:guruclef]

I made a few more small changes to the language etc in order to wikify some more. I took out the short explanation of he anger stage - I was just going to change the reference to anger at god to something neutral of beliefs, but decided the stage was pretty self-explanatory anyway and just deleted it. --Pipedreambomb (talk) 04:29, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Can someone make "Kübler-Ross grief cycle" and "Kubler-Ross grief cycle" redirect here? I have no idea how all this shit is moonspeak to me.

Done - see Wikipedia:Redirect for instructions

Length

Is it just me, or does the popular culture section seem longer than the rest of the article? Someone please shorten it!--Astroview120mm 01:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Research on the theory

The "research" section says a Yale study "obtained some findings that were consistent with the five-stage theory and others that were inconsistent with it" (but doesn't elaborate on what these are).

The link in question begins its Results section with "Counter to stage theory, disbelief was not the initial, dominant grief indicator."

Yet the description (in this article) above says "Kübler-Ross also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in the order noted above, nor are all steps experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two".

Is the Yale study testing some stricter version of the KR model? From what I see on this page, KR explicitly said the order doesn't matter, and yet the biggest "inconsistency" found seems to be with order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.71.164.107 (talk) 07:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

some random vandalism in the article, removed it from the grief section. 99.236.186.75 (talk) 19:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Pop Culture

This page needs some work. removed opinion on Frasier episode - am questioning need for pop culture section at all... Nzbassist 09:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, one use I can think of for the pop culture section is to highlight the differences between the "five stages" as perceived in pop culture and Kubler-Ross' actual hypothesis. For example, many pop cultural references present the "five stages": as generally-accepted in the psychological field, as an ordered list, and as a list which must include all items. None of these three are true. Since the "Criticism" section is gone, the pop culture area is the only place this dichotomy is highlighted. --joeOnSunset 17:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
It's probably a lot longer than necessary, since it's a commonly used paradigm in fiction, but there's only really a need for a few examples. Seems like people have self-indulgently added references from their favourite tv shows. --Pipedreambomb (talk) 04:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm a certified school psychologist with over 20 years' experience, and in that professional capacity I'm questioning the so-called "accuracy" of Jess experiencing the five stages in Bridge to Terabithia. The kid lost his best friend out of nowhere and then blew through the five stages in a week! Ain't gonna happen like that! That's the one big flaw in what is otherwise an excellent children's novel and movie! Lyle F. Padilla lpadilla@voicenet.com207.103.47.150 (talk) 23:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to add a section on references to the in media? This was strongly mentioned and the basis of All_that_jazz. Lordandrei (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Too much terminal illness reference

This is applied to people who lose members of their family, or friends, etc. It's not just about terminal illness. Bear this in mind.--Editor510 drop us a line, mate 19:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Small change under "Cultural Relevance"

Hey, just a heads up that I changed the line "A dying individual's approach to death has been linked to the amount of meaning and purpose a person has found throughout his lifetime."

I changed the "his" to "their" to reflect gender equality with greif dealings. If I've made this edit in error please reverse it. TGardine (talk) 00:56, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You did, so I did. The "gender neutral" may be acceptable or encouraged in PC colloquial speech, but its still the plural possessive in English grammar. I reverted the sentence to the grammatically correct use of his. Boneyard90 (talk) 13:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Other names

It is also called the 5 stages of shock. This is often used in cartoons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.126.83 (talk) 23:04, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Order of stages in substance abuse?

Is there any particular reason why in the section Grieving in substance abuse bargaining comes before anger? Alex.g (talk) 06:46, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved Mike Cline (talk) 23:05, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


Kübler-Ross model → Five Stages of Grief – Even the lead of the article notes that this is commonly known as the Five Stages of Grief. 173.66.111.59 (talk) 19:58, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Difficult. With the title "Five Stages of Grief", we would be passing it off as an official title, which it isn't. With "Five stages of grief", it would arguably be even worse since we'd be passing it off as an ontological reality (a notion to which there is substantial opposition) rather than a hypothesis and model by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. I say let's keep it at the current title.
    Btw, I also somewhat oppose your edit here. Haven't reverted it, but I think "Kübler-Ross model" is much more matter-of-factly and neutral. We obviously can't promote the five stages of grief as a reality when there is substantial opposition to the Kübler-Ross model. --213.196.214.177 (talk) 01:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, well, Wikipedia is not in the business of truth, but verifiability. And it can be shown that the term Five Stages of Grief is much more common than Kübler-Ross model. Arguing over putting "official" titles on things is irrelevant, since there is also no such thing as a circle, the number 2, or a vacuum. 173.66.111.59 (talk) 18:00, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
All of your examples are mathematical ontologocial realities. The Kübler-Ross model's reality is as a model. That's why the current title is correct. I'm glad that you're such a fan of the model, but it's just that. A model. And we will accurately refer to it as simply that. (I'm the same guy from above btw.) --87.79.231.4 (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not a fan of the model. You have given no argument that trumps WP:COMMONNAME. 173.66.111.59 (talk) 05:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
You're point blank refusing to acknowledge my overriding argumentation? Well, thanks for the conversation ender. At any rate, Kübler-Ross model is the correct common name due to the reasons I pointed out, your proposed move has no basis in fact or Wikipedia policy and it will not happen.
On the off-chance that you're willing to pretend like you're actually trying to follow my line of reasoning: The "five stages of grief" are the central part of the Kübler-Ross model. But this article is about the Kübler-Ross model. It is not about the five stages of grief. Therefore, the common name is Kübler-Ross model. That's how COMMONNAME works. According to COMMONNAME, this article must be titled Kübler-Ross model, because that's simply the topic of this article. In other words: You have said nothing that overrides COMMONNAME. I'll leave you to your games now. --195.14.221.253 (talk) 06:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
If the article says "The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief..." how are the five stages of grief only part of the model? 173.66.111.59 (talk) 04:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Fair point, but Lova Falk's argument still looks more academically sound. Sorry.Wedensambo (talk) 21:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The title "Five stages of grief" makes it a definite thing, and it is not, it is a model. You might change into "Five stages of grief model" but that is wordy and clumsy, so the prestent title is better. Lova Falk talk 09:56, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I'm persuaded by Lova Falk's argument, and Googling 'five stages of grief' immediately brings up this article (under its current title) anyway.Wedensambo (talk) 14:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reference Check

Has anyone checked the Further Reading? In particular Scire, P. (2007). "Applying Grief Stages to Organizational Change". This gets lots of Google hits, but all to machine-driven sites or publications that have clearly hoovered up this very article. Matt Whyndham — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.71.130 (talk) 12:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Critical of critcism

Sorry for being critical, but I am generally critical of the opinion that all Wikipedia pages must have a "Criticisms" section, especially if they only seem to be criticisms of contributors: While the model is now quite celebrated, it cannot be taken as normative. - Why? It needs more explanation and/or proper references. It almost sounds like original research, so it needs to be verified. Critics call the Kübler-Ross model too vague, simplistic, and non-prescriptive. - Uses Weasel Words, which should be avoided. Who calls the model too vague, simplistic, and non-prescriptive? People can react to grief in many different ways, and the model provides no method to move a person to the "acceptance" stage. And even once reaching this stage, the model provides no guidance to people who may then have to live in a significantly-changed situation. - It doesn't need to provide a method. It is not meant to provide guidance! It is a description of the stages, not a counseling assistant! I'm taking this out (and don't consider it censorship because, quite frankly, it doesn't help the article). If anyone wants to improve this opinion and verify it with a reputable source, by all means add it back in. Horncomposer 20:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

There definitely needs to be a criticism section though yeah it could be a lot better than this. The model has significant problems. -- Nzbassist 09:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I removed the two links in this section, because they seem completely lacking in authority. I am not a partisan of the Kubler-Ross model -- I think it's probably quite culturally specific, vague, and the rest of it -- but it seems inappropriate to have what I suspect are links inserted by the "critics" themselves, who point to "alternative" models that may or may not have any following or therapeutic validity. -- 206.174.88.167 00:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)dhn
The Kubler Ross stage model is really quite old and has been overtaken by newer theories of grief. Basically grief is really messy and there are a wide variety of responses to it, and it's just not true that there are a series of stages. Sure, Kubler-Ross hedged her bets when she said "any person will experience at least 2 stages but not necessarily in order." But that's just a get-out-of-jail clause that most people never hear, that was an attempt to protect the theory. Unfortunately it is embedded, rock-solid in public awareness. I'll throw in some references today or tomorrow when I get time. -- Callivert (talk) 03:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with Criticisms from Wiki users. I personally have some criticisms of the Bargaining stage. For one, it emphasizes God, which wouldn't be valid for non-theistic persons. For two, it emphasizes death, which is not the only thing to cause someone to go through the five stages of grief. -- GAMEchief (talk) 06:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The "Kübler-Ross model" serves a useful purpose in recognizing and dealing with high stress events. And it's well described (redundantly so) that individual response is variable, without following the "stages" in strict linear or chronological order. This Wiki-article should primarily present the "Kübler-Ross model" as described by Kübler-Ross, with relatively minor references to key criticism limited within a "Criticism" section. A Wikipedia article is not the forum to argue the merits of a topic itself within the main article. That said, there are many redundant repeated statements that still need to be edited out. HalFonts (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

In October 2013, user:RedPenOfDoom placed a balance flag on the "Criticisms" section. In March 2014, I moved that flag to a different section "Grief Counseling" because that section the concerns of "Criticisms" is unfounded while "Grief Counseling" has real neutrality problems. (I suggest "Grief Counseling" be deleted altogether.) The justification for my conclusions and actions is stated in a message I left on RedPen's talk page, which I am pasting as follows:

"Hi, I wanted to give you the heads up that I'm *moving* the balance flag you placed on the "Criticism" section of the Kubler-Ross article to the "Grief Communication" section. I've just carefully read the source material cited in the "Criticism" section, and the section itself, of course. This is a well-founded, well-verified, and dispassionately written set of critiques on the Kubler-Ross stage model from notable sources. There is a valid and public viewpoint among medical, psychological, social, and clinical professionals that the Kubler-Ross stages have no verifiable validity. It is very much important, therefore, to have this well-written section stand as it is. There is no violation of NPV and it is consistent with the better incarnations of "Criticism" in other wikipedia pages. If anything, the whole Kubler-Ross article itself is flagged for cleanup on the grounds of it seeming like an opinion essay (I happen to agree with that assessment). However, out of the whole article, I'd have to say the dispassionate "Criticism" is the most wikipedia-like section of them all, while the worst section is the "Grief Communication" section. You'll agree that the "Communication" contains zero citations to back up the claims about usefulness to health care professionals, and you might also agree its description of courageousness and the value judgement of "a good death" is not a neutral point of view. I just got through reading a critical article by a professor of theology in which he discusses how adherence Kubler-Ross can be hazardous, not helpful to care givers:
"My experience in the hospital setting is that the staff who expects the patient to "progress" from one stage to the other, treat patients impersonally.... They also tend to reprimand patients for not cooperating with a perceived natural process of dying as defined by Kubler-Ross. In other cases I have personally provided counseling to staff who developed a sense of inadequacy because they feel they have failed in facilitating a smooth progression of the patient from one stage to an other. I have also experienced patients who feel frustrated because they perceive themselves stagnating between stages. Furthermore, I have also invested many hours with patients who feel confused because they have not been able to reach "the ideal stage of acceptance" or as Kubler-Ross states, the good dying stage. At some levels I have found my self "deprogramming" staff and patients concerning the death and dying model as originally stated by Kubler-Ross." http://kalathos.metro.inter.edu/Num_1/Kubler_Ross.pdf)"

Apart from its NPV problems, I don't find the "Grief Communication" section to add very much to the overall article in the first place and would advocate its deletion. I'll leave that to others.Lapabc (talk) 05:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


"Additional theoretical models" section

I feel this section might be somewhat irrelevant or even inappropriate to this article, since this article is about the Kubler-Ross model. Perhaps they should be moved to Grief or Death?
Also, this section definitely needs rewriting. Its language is too un-encyclopedic.Thomas J. S. Greenfield (talk) 12:04, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

What's good for the goose...

Friedman & James, in their scathing criticism of the DABDA model, make questionable use of semantics and pseudo-rational posturing as guardians of scientifically validated human experience. This posturing serves ultimately as a platform for glaring self-promotion of their patented approach to grief work.

The authors should be aware that:

1.Their use of phrases such as "an incalculable amount of emotional energy" mimics the vagueness in terminology that K-R is accused of. Equally, their literal interpretation of the term 'denial' is as absurd as their insinuation that 'stages' = time = abdication by patients of any active role in experience. The latter is an insult to patients’ capacity for self-determination, casting them as automata which respond predictably to the stimuli provided by operator-therapists.

2.Bad therapeutic practice is equated with a bad conceptual model, without providing a logical link between the two. Their anecdotal, and apparently one-sided , second-hand report of patients terminating therapy due to a therapist pushing an agenda, highlights the problem of professional inadequacy, not flaws in the model.

3.No evidence is provided for the insinuation that the model itself is harmful. Beyond reference to claims of expertise based on co-authoring books and working with over 100,000 grieving people, no further data or descriptions of methodology are provided to substantiate the claim that "the theory of the stages of grief has done more harm than good to grieving people." By the authors’ own reckoning, the reader is left to assume that "thousands" could mean up to 9,999 people, as the authors did not refer to 'tens of thousands', and therefore conclude that the KB model is potentially harmful to 9.99% of grieving patients, whilst the remaining population will experience some or no benefit, but no harm. Accepting this, is a model with a ten percent probability of causing harm, mediated by the therapist skill in application, counter-indicated in grief work, given its potential benefits?

It is disappointing, despite the allusions to professionalism on the trademarked website of the Grief Recovery Institute, that among the 7,524 articles associated with the search (grief) on the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the U.S. Institutes o Health databases, there is no record of peer reviewed work on grief associated with searches (grief friedman rp), (grief james jw), (Russell P. Friedman), or (John W. James). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.143.254.53 (talk) 07:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree Friedman's logic is seriously flawed. The Friedman article doesn't make much sense in many places - especially the part about "disbelief". It's a figure of speech all right, but that doesn't mean it refers to something (omitted expletive) nonexistent - it is an (yet another omitted expletive) attitude of fiercely not wanting something to be true.
The only thing he's got right is probably that the model should not be called "stages".Thomas J. S. Greenfield (talk) 12:27, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

... and that people frequently misunderstand things. But it's not fair to simply blame the author for it.Thomas J. S. Greenfield (talk) 12:39, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

LoZ:MM

I watched the Game Theory video where they said Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is based off the 5 stages. Anyone wanna add that to "In popular culture"??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.130.25.82 (talk) 00:16, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Grieving following a significant political defeat

This was originally titled "Grieving following a political drumming." I edited the article to remove this section, commenting "While this may work as satire, it has no place here." The author of this "example" reverted my edit, straight-facedly denying it was satire.

It is, in fact, a thinly-veiled -- or not at all veiled -- political attack against Pres. Barack Obama, which I believe everyone here must understand does nothing at all to advance understanding of the Kubler-Ross model. There is nothing of the stages in the "example", all parts of which are taken from comments or actions by the President within a few days following the Nov. 2014 general election in the United States. The application of the stages to the various actions and words of the President are forced at best and vacuous at worst.

This is vandalism of an important Wikipedia article for political purposes, plain and simple.

Mark E Miller (talk) 05:29, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Cor or Corr

The article mentions the name of the model as Corr, but the name of the person as Charles A Cor. I think it might need to be Corr in both cases, but I'm not sure so I haven't changed it. --132.76.10.41 (talk) 15:28, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

ehow spam? or url=scheme?

In note 4 is written "Gilbert, Darci. [www.ehow.com/how-does_4674267_stages-grief-apply-breakups.html "How Do the Stages of Grief Apply to Breakups?"] Check |url= scheme (help). eHow. Retrieved 10 April 2012." with a part in red. Prepending http:// to the url gives a warning ehow is in the spamfilter. Should the note for reasons of spam be removed? Any other solution? Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 06:14, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Your spam filter should be clever enough to distinguish between http://[address] or without, if not, you need a better spam filter. eHow isn't really spam, they just want you to click on their page when it pops up in a search (like google). It generally isn't terribly useful as the service they offer is entirely geared toward ad revenue. Once you click the page, they got their 100th of a cent, irregardless if the information is useful or not. Using eHow as a reference probably isn't a great idea, but if the information cited isn't contested or controversial, then no harm done I suppose. Naapple (Talk) 07:03, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi Naaple. Thanks for your answer. Please look at Kübler-Ross_model#Notes. As an editor I wanted to remove the red part by inserting http:// in the article page. When hitting "save" the article didn't save but a warning message from the wikimedia server appeared on top of the page. To clarify: I couldn't save the article with "http://" prepended. Here is my use case: I want to remove the red part in Kübler-Ross_model#Notes. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 08:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I didn't get at all what you meant before, and I've now recreated the problem you ran into. I've asked about eHow in the RSN: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#eHow.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naapple (talk • contribs) 20:13, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so it would seem content farms like eHow aren't a reputable source, so I've replaced the cite with a (hopefully) better one. Naapple (Talk) 22:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

If you replaced the source with a link to someone's blog, I've got bad news: that's also not a very reputable source... This section should just be removed or replaced with a one liner like "other kinds of grief have also been analysed using these stages as a guide." Anyone can see that it is tempting to use it not just for grief of a loved one.

Wagahaihanekodearu (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Pedagogical relevance

This seems to be irrelevant to the article and lacks citations supporting it's primary claim. Strike for removal? 216.59.124.162 (talk) 21:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with removal. Lova Falk talk 12:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The Schopenhauer quote is disputed on the Wikiquote page. A review of the controversy may be found at https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/Papers/stages.pdf where Jeffrey Shallit discusses the confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ironpaw (talk • contribs) 13:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

As of August 2016, this section appeared as a single sentence: "Pedagogical studies suggest that the stages of grief exemplify the basic process of integrating new information that conflicts with previous beliefs.[citation needed]" As pointed out 3 years ago by an anonymous poster and seconded by Lova_Falk, there is no support for the claim of any pedagogical relevance nor any pedagogical studies. The article pointed out by Ironpaw "Science, Pseudoscience, and The Three Stages of Truth" is interesting but it is not obviously relevant to the contents of this subsection, perhaps it refers to a fragment of a previous version? In any case, the requests for removal seem justified and nothing has been offered to the contrary so the section has been deleted. Lapabc (talk) 04:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Criticism section

I re-wrote this section which was disorganized and contained something that made no sense. For some time, the Criticism section contained a reference to a "Baxter Jennings." I noticed that other sites which copy Wikipedia pages repeat this, propagating Jennings' citation, even leading to a blog post that descriibes "the well-known criticism by Baxter Jennings." But who is that person? To make a long story short, he's not a professional or expert in the field but apparently was a student who worked on a group project in a Philosphy class at University of Kentucky back in the 1990s. The old class webpage remains live and apparently people looking for an internet reference found that. The student was talking about the work of Robert J. Kastenbaum (1932-2013) who was a Professor at Arizona State University and recognized expert in gerontology, aging, and death. So the citations have been shifted to Kastenbaum.Lapabc (talk) 05:12, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I removed the "says who" and "citation needed" tags added 28 November 2016 by Mild Bill Hiccup. The first flagging has a point; the phrase "most notably by Professor..." was simplified to "such as Professor..." The second flagging does not; the support for Kastenbaum described as a recognized expert comes from the rest of the lengthy sentence describing his related, relevant work and the following sentence with external citations.Lapabc (talk) 23:21, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Insurance

The article now contains the sentence: "In a book co-authored with David Kessler and published posthumously, Kübler-Ross expanded her model to include any form of personal loss, such as the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or income, major rejection, the end of a relationship or divorce, drug addiction, incarceration, the onset of a disease or an infertility diagnosis, and even minor losses, such as a loss of insurance coverage."

Loss of insurance coverage can be a very non-minor loss!

HandsomeMrToad (talk) 07:17, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistency

I checked the external reference to An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief, Paul K. Maciejewski, PhD; Baohui Zhang, MS; Susan D. Block, MD; Holly G. Prigerson, PhD, JAMA. 2007;297:716-723. There it is stated that the grief model consistes of the five stages: disbelief, yearning, anger, depression, and acceptance. There needs to be a precise reference for the model described as it varies from that detailed in the empirical research.

Secondly the Research on the Theory states that the Yale University research "obtained some findings that were consistent with the five-stage theory and others that were inconsistent with it". This would appear incorrect. The abstract the reference cites states: "The 5 grief indicators achieved their respective maximum values in the sequence (disbelief, yearning, anger, depression, and acceptance) predicted by the stage theory of grief.".LookingGlass (talk) 17:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The statement about some findings being inconsistent with stage theory is very much correct. That same paragraph in the abstract begins "Counter to stage theory, disbelief was not the initial, dominant grief indicator. Acceptance was the most frequently endorsed item and yearning was the dominant negative grief indicator from 1 to 24 months postloss." Acceptance is supposed to be the last stage but it was the highest rated item in the very first time point and all other subsequent time points measured (see Figure 2A). That is not only inconsistent with the five-stage theory, it is opposite of it. The authors themselves admit that some of the findings were "counter to stage theory."Lapabc (talk) 05:57, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
The issue here seems to me one of assumptions and interpretations. The methodology of the research of Maciejewski et al states: "Although it would have been preferable to use separate scales for the assessment of yearning, disbelief, anger, and acceptance of the death, no such scales exist for each of these grief stages. To maximize consistency across measures, single items were used for all grief phase indicators. (These) have proven remarkably accurate in the prediction of depression. The frequency, rather than severity, of each grief indicator was used .. because frequency has proven to be a more effective means of evaluating the impact of events." To me, what the authors seem to be acknowledging here is that their research decisions were made more with a view to clinical usage than to the psychological model per se. As would be expected, in the former the results seem inconsistent in some ways with the model, and the authors opening remarks reflect this. In the latter view they seem largely consistent - as the authors' concluding remarks state, and in my opinion these should take precedence. Others might think the opposite, but for Wikipedia the article should reflect the balance that needs be struck, rather than something black and white.
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