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Healthy Grief

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Submitted By daveskye
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Healthy Grief in the Kübler-Ross Model, the Book of Job and Buddhism

Grand Canyon University
HLT-310V

A loss of a loved one elicits the natural reaction of grief from human beings. Such a loss is a source of psychological and emotional trauma, especially when the friend or relative who passes away does so before the expected time in the “social clock (Myers, 2011, p. 184)”—the death of a child can cause a longer and more intense period of grief than the death of an older loved one. While grief is a natural response to lost relatives and friends, it is beneficial for an individual’s psychological and emotional well-being to transition away from a state of mourning without any long-term detrimental effects to one’s well-being. Healthy grief can be described as a manner of experiencing and expressing grief that allows for this smooth transition. Grief is largely a cultural phenomenon, with different practices and rituals that vary from culture to culture with regard to overcoming grief (Lehto & Stein, 2009, p. 29). This paper will look at some of these cultural variances, with the comparison and contrast in the views of grief among the modern Western world with the Kübler-Ross model, Western theological tradition in the Book of Job and the Eastern theological tradition, with the views of Buddhism on grief. The paper will also look at the conception and role of job in relation to grief in the three views of grief tackled by this paper.
The Kübler-Ross model of grief is more popularly known as the Five Stages of Grief, which structures the grieving process as a cycle gone through by an individual through five distinct stages: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance (Kübler-Ross, 2014). Kübler-Ross is particularly focused on overcoming denial in grief, which she sees as a product of Western societies’ practice of hiding or concealing

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