The acceptance stage is when you have come to terms with the loss and have begun to build a new life for yourself. During this phase you are thinking of the future and not dwelling in the past. The deceased can now be remembered the way they were and no longer glorified as common during the previous stages. Memories of the deceased can now be remembered without tearful outbreaks.

Some people prefer to think of mourning as tasks rather than stages or phases. According to Worden (1991a) there are four tasks to mourning or grief they are: to accept the reality of the loss, work through the pain of grief, adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing, and to emotionally relocate the deceased and move on with life. This theory is very similar to the stages of dying and can also be used to help us understand mourning and grief. It is known that people who have had a complicated or difficult relationship with the deceased may experience complicated grief reactions. Worden (1991a) identified four types of complicated grief reactions:

Anyone who believes they know someone that is having complicated grief reactions should try to get that person to seek help from a professional. Some difficult losses may require help from a professional to get them through the grieving process. They may not even know exactly what they need to work through in order to recover and live a normal life.

Children should be involved as much as they seem to be able to handle in the grieving process. They are a lot smarter than most of us give them credit for and also need to make the death a reality and try to understand what has happened. They need to be told what is going on and be able to say their final good-bye. Children need to realize that death is a part of life and that their feelings are important. They need to know that the person who died did not want to leave them and that nothing they did could have caused or prevented the death. They need to know that it is not their fault. This is very important because a child may believe that they caused their loved one’s death because of something they said or thought. This type of self-blame can make the grieving process very difficult and they may carry this guilt for many years.

Depression is the phase of grieving when we struggle with internal unresolved issues with the deceased and with ourselves. We need to work through this time and keep telling ourselves that the pain will dull with time. Some characteristics of this stage are withdrawal from friends and family, difficulty sleeping or sleeping all the time, feeling down and worn out, and physical aches and pains. The final stage of grief is referred to as acceptance.

Some topics in this essay:
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, According Worden, , grieving process, complicated grief reactions, grief reactions, complicated grief, grief reactions-this, reality loss, stages grieving, physical aches pains, mourning grief, help professional, aches pains, friends family,