Elisabeth Kubler Ross famously defined five stages of grief in her seminal work. Today, the five stages of grief are known as the Kubler-Ross model of grief. In recent years, Ross has written on her website about the international recognition of her model of grief and what that truly means: humans grieve and humans experience grieving largely the same way. Ross has also spoken about how she has realized that the stages of grief apply to more situations in life than the loss of life itself. Loss, in any capacity, inspires grief and grief is most often experienced in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Trauma recovery can involve going through the process of grief in different ways. First, there may have been a significant, traumatizing loss in someone’s life which was never really processed. The process of grief has to be completed in order for someone to move on. Without fully expressing and embracing the emotions of grief, the loss remains alive and real, as if it were constantly happening. Traumatic loss lives in the mind, body, and soul as shock and denial, contributing to the many hyper vigilant symptoms of trauma. People avoid grief because grief eventually leads to acceptance and having to face the fact that loss has taken place. If a life has been lost or there was a significant, traumatizing loss in someone’s life, they may come to terms with that loss for the first time in trauma recovery.
Second, mourning the experience of trauma and the innocence lost due to trauma can inspire someone in trauma recovery to work through the stages of grief. Trauma profoundly changes the way someone sees themselves, the world they live in, and who they are in that world. Many people see their trauma timeline as life before trauma, trauma, and life after trauma. The change trauma creates in their lives is saddening and depressing because a true loss of life perspective has taken place.
There are a myriad of other ways trauma has to be grieved during recovery. People have the safe space to get angry for the first time over the trauma they have experienced. People experience bargaining in trying to trade treatment and the work of trauma for some other promise. Finally, there is acceptance. Trauma has taken place and now recovery is taking place. Grief has to be part of the process but will ultimately lead to freedom from trauma.
The Guest House Ocala offers concierge style customization for residential trauma programs, as well as treatment for related issues like addictions and mental illness. Our private estate offers you the privacy and comfort you need to do the work and heal your mind, body, and spirit. For information on life at the estate and our programs for healing, call: 1-855-483-7800