Discuss the stage theory of grief.

Answers will vary. John Bowlby, the attachment theorist, was the first to propose a stage theory of grief for coping with bereavement. It included four stages: shock-numbness, yearning-searching, disorganization-despair, and reorganization. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross adapted Bowlby's stage theory to describe her five-stage reaction of terminally ill patients to knowledge of their own impending death: denial-isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stage theory of grief has become generally accepted when applied to various kinds of losses, including children's responses to parental separation, adults' responses to marital separation, and hospital staffs' responses to the death of an inpatient. There is currently heavy reliance in medical education on the Kübler-Ross model of grief. Jacobs modified the stage theory of grief to include the following stages: numbness-disbelief, separation distress (yearning-anger-anxiety), depression-mourning, and recovery. Jacobs' stage theory, like those that have come before, is largely based on anecdotes and case studies. In order to test Jacobs' theory, Paul Maciejewski and his colleagues administered five items measuring disbelief, yearning, anger, depression, and acceptance of death to 233 bereaved individuals from 1 to 24 months following their losses. A number of findings are clear. Disbelief was highest just after the loss and gradually waned over the course of two years. Acceptance of the loss shows the opposite course, being nonexistent at the outset, growing gradually, and peaking two years later. Yearning, anger, and depression rise suddenly in the predicted order and then each wanes gradually.