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The title of her 2005 monograph with Kessler, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, leaves little doubt about that. This volume, like its 1969 forerunner, continued to strongly divide opinion among readers (it was positively reviewed by Bolden (2007). The authors responded to the criticisms from previous years in the opening lines of Chapter 1: The stages have evolved since their introduction, and they have been very misunderstood over the past three decades. They were never meant to tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grief is as individual as our lives. (Ku¨bler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p. 7) Such a disclaimer seems inadequate in the face of lack of evidence for the stages. The authors still assumed that people experience the stages. In fact, Ku¨bler-Ross and Kessler (2005) seemingly go on to weaken their own case, noting that ‘‘they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or in a prescribed order’’ (p. 7). Friedman and James (2008) counter argued ‘‘If there are no typical responses to losses, and not everyone goes through them or in order, how can there possibly be stages that universally represent people’s reactions to loss?’’ (p. 41). Despite opposition from other experts too, continued promotion of the stages approach came, somewhat Stroebe et al. 459 surprisingly, from a team of empirical researchers (Maciejewski, Zhang, Block, & Prigerson, 2007), but this (as we shall see) was met with strong criticism. To this day, stage theory is still widely known, taught, and used in clinical practice. Konigsberg’s book (2011), entitled The Truth About Grief: The Myth of its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss, though accessibly reviewed by Balk (2011) and Neimeyer (2012), has remained apparently unheeded and relatively uncited. As a final illustration of perseverance, the stages approach has recently been claimed state of the science of bereavement theorizing in an article by Jurecic (2015). According to Jurecic, what is ‘‘emblemic of modern loss and grief’’ in medicine is a progression through Ku¨bler-Ross’s five stages (1969), which ‘‘encourage an orderly process of bereavement,’’ that contemporary (medical) approaches propose that ‘‘mourning progresses in predictable stages’’ and that there is a ‘‘right way to mourn.’’ This misrepresentation of current scientific understanding in the bereavement field (elaborated below) does our field—to say nothing of bereaved people themselves—no good. Worryingly, her claims may even promote the use of stages. Again the enormous resistance to moving beyond the stages approach is demonstrated. There are compelling arguments to be made as to why this situation must change. Criticisms and Assessment of Stage Theory From the claims and refutations traced earlier, five main categories of criticism emerge: 1. Lack of theoretical depth/explanation. In contrast to Bowlby’s phases, Ku¨blerRoss’s stages (1969) were not derived from theoretical principles. As Archer (1999) pointed out, the approach ‘‘does not address the issue of what might be the principles underlying this organization’’ (p. 100). This therefore fails to address the question: What is the function of grief? In Bowlby’s (1980) case, the phases were related to attachment phenomena, serving the purpose of regaining proximity to the person from whom the separation had occurred. No such underlying principles were postulated for the stages. Bonanno and Boerner (2007) expressed their doubts as follows: Grief stages tell us little about how people might cope with the loss; why they might experience varying degrees and kinds of distress at different times; and how, over time, they adjust to a life without their loved one. Considering the evidence from other studies that contradicts the idea of an ‘‘average’’ normal response to loss, this is a misguiding message. (p. 2693) The aforementioned shortcomings have a further, major implication: Stage theory does not help us identify those at high risk or with complications in the grieving process of great importance for diagnostic systems such as 460 OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying 74(4) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11). 2. Conceptual confusion and misrepresentation of grief and grieving. Among this class of critical comments, the following stands out: It is unclear what the sequential stages (i.e., denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) really are and what they represent. Some denote affective states, others cognitive processes. So there is a mixture of different types of constructs which do not fit coherently or sequentially together. There is no theoretical rationale for this particular arbitrary use of dividing lines between states. Further examples of conceptual concerns are given in Table 1. Taken together, rather than providing us with ‘‘the knowledge of grief’s terrain’’ (Ku¨bler-Ross & Kessler, 2005, p. 7), it becomes clear from the points listed that stage theory misrepresents phenomena associated with bereavement. 3. Lack of empirical evidence. Ku¨bler-Ross’s (1969) knowledge was not derived from systematic, empirical investigation (of
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