The problem, and the damage that this has caused for bereaved people, is that the model she developed has been considered more than a description of grief of those she interviewed, and taken as a prescription for how to grieve. Many bereaved people do not experience anger, for example, and therefore feel they are grieving wrong, or have not completed all their “grief work.” Clinicians may say that a patient is in denial, without understanding that the stages are not linear, and that people go in and out of denial at different times. In sum, very few people experience the orderly progression of
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