The stage theory of dying was first proposed by the Swiss-American psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying (1969), is perhaps the single theoretical model that is best known to the general public in the entire field of studies about death and dying (thanatology). In its simplest form, this theory claims that dying people will proceed through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. More broadly, the theory maintains that other individuals who are drawn into a dying person’s experiences, such as family members, friends, professional care providers, and volunteer helpers, may also experience similar “stages of adjustment.”
Origins of the Theory
Kubler-Ross explained in her book that she was a new faculty member in psychiatry at a Chicago-area teaching hospital in the fall of 1965 when four theological students seeking assistance with a student project approached her. They had been assigned to write about a “crisis in human life” and had chosen to examine death as “the biggest crisis people had to fact”. In order to tackle this topic, she agreed to help them gain access to and interview some dying patients.
Some suitable patients were found, and Kubler-Ross developed a procedure whereby she would approach likely candidates, secure their permission, and then interview them about their experiences, while the students and others who came to observe would do so from behind a one-way glass mirror. Following the interviews and the return of the patients to their rooms, the group would discuss the patients’ responses and their own reactions.
On Death and Dying is based on interviews with approximately 200 adult patients during a period of less than three years. Examples from the interviews, along with clinical impressions and the theoretical model that Kubler-Ross formed from these experiences, were subsequently reported in her book.
Encyclopedia of Death and Dying