Death and Dying the Five

Death and Dying

The five stages of dying as expressed in the Kubler-Ross theory may apply to some instances but they do not fit all cultural and individual cases. The five stages she describes in her book, on Death and Dying are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. However, these reactions are also subject to various cultural influences and differences.

These stages are possibly more applicable to Western secular society and typically modern responses to death and dying. Different cultures have different modes and ways of understanding the meaning of death and particular views with regard to dealing with the inevitability of the fact of death.

Most of these stages mentioned by Kubler-Ross for example would not apply to most traditional Eastern views of death and dying. In the first instance, Eastern views of death are often very different and the stage of denial would generally not be acceptable to this view. This would apply to Buddhist views where death is seen as a form of welcome 'releasement' or transcendence of death; which is a very different perspective from some more secular Western cultural views. Another example would be the various religious views which stress reincarnation as a central part of the death and this again invalidates the first four of Kubler-Ross's stages and focuses more on the acceptance stage.

The Kubler-Ross stages have been extended by some theorists to include other aspect that are more in line with thinking where death is not seen in a negative light: for example, the view of death as transcendence.