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Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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Kaylee Mahon

Mr. Cann

Sociology  

7 December 2015

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

        “Dying is something we human beings do continuously not just at the end of our lives” (Kubler-Ross EKR) Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was born in Switzerland on July 8, 1926. From a young age Elisabeth dreamt of working in the medical field. Her father despised the idea of his daughter being a doctor. He instead urged her to become a secretary in his business or a maid. (Biography para 3)   She left her home at 16 to volunteer in World War II. (Biography, para 2) In 1951 Elisabeth attended the University of Zurich where she would attain her dream of becoming a doctor. While studying at Zurich she met Emmanuel Ross, an American medical Student. They married a year after Elisabeth graduated and moved back to America where they both had had internships at Community Hospital in Glenn Cove, Long Island.

        During Elisabeth’s fellowship at Manhattan State Hospital, she came in contact with critically ill and dying patients. She also encountered the lack of compassion, care and decent treatment of the critically ill patients. (Good Therapy para 3) Not only was Elisabeth troubled by the treatment of the patients but, she was also dumbfounded by the lack of curriculum in medical school on the dying or ill patients. (Biography para 7)  Elisabeth started a workshop for medical students teaching them how to work with the terminally ill in a respectful way while also identifying and acknowledging the issues they were facing as they approached their deaths. (Good Therapy para 3)

        In 1962 Elisabeth moved to Colorado as a teaching fellow at the University of Colorado Medical School, also continuing her psychiatric training. A few years later she accepted a teaching position as an assistant professor in psychiatry at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. (Good Therapy para 4) During her time there she continued her work with the dying. She was both criticized and celebrated for her research and theories on the faults of the psychiatric and medical professions when dealing with the terminally ill patients.  

        In 1969 Elisabeth published her book On Death and Dying which is based on all her research throughout her years. (Good Therapy para 5) The book introduced Elisabeth’s Five Stages of Grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. (Business Balls chart) the book and Elisabeth’s ideas were ground-breaking for that time period. With these ideas she challenged the traditional theories and practices associated with facing death and death itself. Especially in the West, death is considered to be a taboo. (Business Balls para 10) People don’t like to even think about it let alone talk about it but because of Elisabeth that all changed.

        The five stages of grief, also known as the grief cycle, were not intended to be a firm sequence of the stages. It’s not exactly a process as such but more a model of their grief. The dying will experience the stages, maybe not all of them but most of them. They will not experience them in any specific order either. These are the stages as she has them listed in her book On Death and Dying. Denial is a conscious or sometime even subconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or reality.  Some people can become locked in this stage when dealing with a traumatic change that can be ignored. However, death is not particularly avoidable. Anger comes in different ways. The person can be angry with someone else or with themselves, sometimes even both. Bargaining usually happens when the person who is facing death attempts to bargain with their God. For instance, someone may say “I promise I’ll be a better person if you can only cure me of this disease.” The depression stage is also referred to as “preparatory grieving.” It shows the person has begun to accept reality but is still emotionally attached to things or people. They are fearful and sometimes feel uncertainty and regret. The final stage is acceptance. This stage varies the most based on the person’s situation. There is some emotional detachment. The people dying most likely will enter this stage before their loved ones. (Business Balls chart)

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