Shankar VedantamHost, Hidden Brain · Journalist, Writer, Science Correspondent

The 5 Stages of Grief Are Wrong

6 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:05

In this Hidden Brain segment, Shankar Vedantam explains that the widely known five‑stage model of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—was originally introduced in the late 1960s to describe how terminally ill patients come to terms with their own mortality. Over time the model has been generalized and turned into a prescriptive template for how people should grieve. Vedantam argues that this shift turns a descriptive framework into a judgmental standard: if someone isn’t angry enough they’re “stuck in denial,” and if they move on quickly they’re accused of bottling emotions. He emphasizes that grief is profoundly individual; people may fall apart, keep going, or experience both simultaneously, and none of these responses is inherently right or wrong. The only harmful approach is letting others dictate the “right” way to grieve. The segment closes with a plug for the Hidden Brain podcast.

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You've probably heard of the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. This model is one of the most widely known ideas in all of psychology. It was proposed in the late 1960s as a way to describe how terminally ill patients process the news that they're dying. Over the years, it came to be seen as a template for grief writ large. Here's the problem: the theory doesn't describe how people grieve. It prescribes how they should grieve. If you're not angry enough, you must be stuck in denial. If you move on too quickly, people worry you're bottling something up. A framework meant to help became a way to judge. Grief, in fact, is one of the most individual experiences a person can have. Some people fall apart. Some people keep going. Some do both at the same time. And none of them is wrong. The only wrong way to grieve is to let someone else tell you that you're not doing it right. For more insights about the science of the mind, tune into Hidden Brain on Apple, Spotify, or hiddenbrain.org.