Grief Models: Is There Really a “Right” Way to Grieve?
If you’ve spent any amount of time around grief, you’ve probably heard of the Five Stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They’ve become so embedded in our cultural understanding of grief that it can feel like there’s an actual process everyone is supposed to follow. But grief rarely works that neatly. Grief models are meant to give us language for our experiences, not rules for how we should grieve.
What Is a Grief Model?
A grief model is a framework that helps organize and explain common grief experiences. Some focus on emotions, others on adaptation, and others on how people learn to live alongside loss. No single model can perfectly capture everyone's experience, and different models may resonate at different points in a grief journey. The goal isn't to find the correct one. It's to find language that helps make sense of what's happening at any given time.
And for the Type A baddies looking for the official grief checklist, unfortunately, there isn't one.
The Five Stages of Grief
Developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the Five Stages are probably the most recognizable grief model. Interestingly, they were originally developed from her work with people facing their own terminal illnesses, not intended as a universal roadmap for bereavement.
The stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—describe emotions that can absolutely show up in grief. The misconception is that everyone must experience all five, in order, before finally reaching acceptance. In reality, these experiences can overlap, repeat, or never show up at all. Acceptance also doesn't mean grief disappears. The model offers helpful emotional language, but it shouldn't become a grading rubric for healing.
The Seven Stages of Grief
Unlike Kübler-Ross's model, there isn't one universally accepted Seven Stages framework. However, this expanded version offers additional language for understanding the adaptation that happens beyond the initial emotional experience.
The version typically includes shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression and loneliness, reflection and rebuilding, reconstruction, and acceptance and hope. The inclusion of rebuilding and reconstruction is particularly meaningful. So much of grief involves learning to navigate a reality that has fundamentally changed, whether that means reconstructing routines, relationships, identity, or expectations for the future. And the inclusion of hope reminds us that healing can involve imagining a life that still holds the loss alongside things worth looking forward to.
As with the Five Stages, these experiences aren't a prescribed sequence.
Growing Around Grief
Lois Tonkin's Growing Around Grief model offers a different perspective: rather than grief simply getting smaller over time, our lives can grow around it. Imagine grief as a ball inside a small jar. In the beginning, the ball takes up nearly all the space, bumping against everything. Over time, the jar becomes larger. The grief remains, but there's more room for relationships, experiences, joy, and everyday life. The loss hasn't disappeared, and moments of intense grief may still return years later. But there is more space to live alongside it.
This model helps explain why moving forward doesn't require getting over someone or leaving grief behind.
Worden's Four Tasks of Mourning
J. William Worden approaches grief through four tasks: accepting the reality of the loss, processing the pain of grief, adjusting to a world without the person, and finding an enduring connection while continuing life. Before you Type A friends start making a checklist, these aren't tasks to complete in a particular order.
They may be revisited throughout life, sometimes with multiple tasks unfolding simultaneously. Worden's model offers a way to understand the different aspects of adapting to loss, particularly when grief leaves someone wondering what they're actually supposed to do with everything they're feeling.
The Dual Process Model
The Dual Process Model, developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, describes grief as movement between two experiences. Loss-oriented experiences involve missing, yearning for, and feeling the pain of loss. Restoration-oriented experiences involve adapting to life, engaging in everyday activities, and finding moments of relief.
Think of it like a pendulum swinging between the two.
This model helps explain why someone might spend one day completely immersed in grief and the next laughing with friends or enjoying themselves. Both experiences have a place in adapting to loss. Sometimes grieving people feel guilty for having a good day, as though experiencing joy means they aren't grieving enough. But taking breaks from grief isn't a betrayal of the person who died. Those moments of restoration matter, too. Joy and grief can coexist.
So, Which Model Is Right?
The one that helps make sense of the experience.
Someone might connect with the Dual Process Model today and find that Growing Around Grief better describes their experience five years from now. Another person may find comfort in the structure of Worden's Tasks or recognize themselves in the emotional language of the stage models. None of them need to explain everything.
Ultimately, grief models are most useful when they help people understand what they're feeling, rather than measure how well they're supposedly healing. Life can continue growing even while carrying deep grief, and experiencing happiness doesn't diminish the love or significance of what's been lost. There's room for all of it. And there is no single right way to grieve.
Keep the Conversation Going
Watch the Griefology Notes episode above for a deeper look at each model, relatable examples of how they show up in everyday life, and three reflection questions to help connect these concepts to your own grief experience. Be sure to like and subscribe to the Griefology Notes YouTube channel so you never miss an episode, or check out Instagram for more griefy content.