On Grief and Grieving — and what the five stages actually say

On Grief and GrievingKübler-Ross & Kessler

Photograph by Ilia Bronskiy on Pexels.

This is the book the five stages of grief come from, and it is the most misunderstood book on this shelf. ⚠️ Two things are true at once: it is worth reading, and the model it is famous for is not supported by the research. Both belong on the same page.

Where this sits on our shelf

We have not read this one yet. It is on our reading list, and it is here because it is well regarded and because people ask us for it. Everything below is drawn from the book itself, its publisher and its author’s own account of their work — not from our experience of reading it.

The books on this shelf that carry a section headed “Our note” are the ones this family actually read, in grief. This one does not carry that section, and it will not until it has earned it. We would rather tell you which is which than have you assume.

What it is

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s final book, completed with David Kessler before her death in 2004 and published by Scribner in 2005. It is the first time she applied the five stages to bereavement.

What it actually argues

Start with the correction, because almost nobody knows it. The five stages did not begin as a description of grief. Kübler-Ross set them out in On Death and Dying in 1969, and they described what she observed in people who were themselves dying — terminally ill patients coming to terms with their own deaths. This 2005 book is where the model was carried across to the people left behind. Thirty-six years separate the two, and the distinction has been lost almost everywhere since.

The book itself is more careful than its reputation. The authors do not present the stages as a sequence to be completed in order, and do not claim everyone experiences all five. The checklist version — denial, then anger, then bargaining, then depression, then acceptance, in that order, on a schedule — is something the culture did to the book, not something the book did.

And most of it is not about stages at all. The chapters that get least attention are the practical ones — sadness, isolation, dreams, the sense of being haunted, what happens to a household afterwards. For many readers these are the most useful pages in it, and they are the reason to read the source rather than a summary of the model.

⚠️ Now the honest part. The research does not support stage theory. Writing in Scientific American in November 2008, Michael Shermer set out the problem: the psychologist Robert Neimeyer found that studies have failed to support any discernible sequence of emotional phases or any clear end point to grieving, and the Grief Recovery Institute’s Russell Friedman put it more bluntly still — no study has established that the stages exist. What the evidence shows instead is enormous variation between people, and far more resilience than the model predicts.

Why this matters more than an academic quarrel

Because bereaved people get measured against this model by other people. Being told you are “in denial”, or that you ought to have reached acceptance by now, is being held to a timetable that was never validated and was never meant for you in the first place.

Read it as what it is: a thoughtful book by two people who sat with the dying and the bereaved for decades, containing one famous idea that the evidence has not borne out. That is still worth your time. It is just not a description of what is supposed to be happening to you.

Who it is wrong for, and when

⚠️ If you are already worried that you are grieving wrong, this is the wrong book for right now. The stages are the single most common reason people conclude they are doing it incorrectly. Come to it later, when it is a book you are reading rather than a ruler you are being held against.

If this one is not right for you

• Want a book that rejects stages entirely? → It's OK That You're Not OK
• Want the sixth stage, written after a child's death? → Finding Meaning
• The full list, sorted by how far along you are → The Shelf

Common questions

Are the five stages of grief real?

Not as a sequence. Research has failed to support any discernible order of emotional phases or any clear end point to grieving — Michael Shermer set this out in Scientific American in November 2008, citing the psychologist Robert Neimeyer. Grief varies enormously between people. The stages can describe feelings many bereaved people recognize, but they are not a timetable and nobody is failing by not following them.

Were the five stages originally about grief?

No. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross set them out in On Death and Dying in 1969 to describe what she observed in terminally ill patients facing their own deaths. They were applied to bereavement much later, in On Grief and Grieving in 2005.

Does the book say grief is linear?

No. The authors do not present the stages as an ordered sequence everyone completes. The rigid checklist version is how the culture adopted the model, not how the book sets it out.

Is On Grief and Grieving still worth reading?

Yes, if you want the source rather than the summary. The chapters on sadness, isolation, dreams and the household after a death are the most useful part and are rarely quoted. Read it knowing the stage model is contested.

Last reviewed October 2026. We make nothing from this recommendation. There are no affiliate links on this page. See our editorial and sourcing policy.