Grief is multifaceted, time consuming, and unique to each individual, so it can be difficult to process. Many people often encounter the bargaining stage, where they try to negotiate with themselves or a higher power to cope with their loss. Although not everyone goes through this stage, understanding it may help people recognize it in themselves and discover how to heal.
What Is the Bargaining Stage of Grief?
The bargaining stage is the third of the five stages in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief model, conceptualized in 1969; it is also featured in the Seven Stages of Grief model. During the bargaining stage of grief, an individual typically tries to negotiate with themselves, people around them, or with a higher power to postpone or undo the inevitable and/or lessen intense bereavement emotions.1 Bargaining is an attempt to deal with grief and loss or someone’s impending mortality.
Along with bargaining, the five stages of grief model includes denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. These stages provide a framework for understanding how people typically respond when faced with a terminal illness, loss, or trauma. However, not everyone experiences these stages in a linear fashion, or even at all.2, 3
Common Emotions Thoughts During the Bargaining Stage
Even though grieving is a personal and unique journey for everyone, people typically feel similar emotions during the bargaining stage. Individuals may fervently want to delay or subdue the pain, undo the past, or take control of the situation. For instance, a person may be falling into a depression from grief, guilt from the thought that they could’ve prevented the loss or fatal event, or experience and express different types of anger.3
Feelings during the bargaining stage can include:
- Anguish
- Shame and guilt (i.e., survivor’s guilt)
- Self loathing
- Anger
- Resentment
- Feeling betrayed by a higher power
- Desperation for the pain to go away
- Insecurity
Common Thoughts During the Bargaining Stage of Grief
To work through the overwhelming emotions that often accompany grief and loss, some people’s thinking may change during this time. “Wishful thinking,” unrealistic expectations, or prayers to a higher being can often surface during the bargaining stage. For some, this stage of grief can also be about turning back time and may be filled with “what ifs” or constant probing about how things could have gone differently.3
Some common thoughts during the bargaining stage of grief include:
- Temporary hope that things can possibly improve or wishing for a miracle (particularly in cases of anticipatory grief.
- Trying to predict the future to avoid losses
- An often unreasonable sense of accountability about the circumstances surrounding the loss:“If I knew my dad was going to die after his surgery, I would’ve never dropped him off at the hospital”
- Thinking you could control the situation in hindsight: “Had I taken a different route, the accident that killed my wife would’ve never happened.”
- Negotiating with a higher power to avoid or undo the loss: “God, I’ll never lie again if you let him live through this.”
- Thoughts associated with regret and guilt: “I wish I would have been closer with my sister while she was still alive”
Examples of Bargaining in Grief
The bargaining phase of grief, like all others, can begin regardless of whether a loss has yet occurred. People may make desperate pleas, promises, or pacts in order to prevent a loss or lessen the severity and pain associated with the event. In contrast, bargaining following a loss can manifest as overthinking or overanalyzing hypothetical scenarios and possible actions that could have impeded or delayed the loss.3
Below are some examples of the bargaining stage of grief:
- “God, I will do whatever it takes to beat my illness”
- “If I do everything right from here on out, my wife will stay”
- “Maybe if I pray more God will spare my daughter’s life”
- “If I take my son to a shaman, I’m sure he’ll be cured this time around”
- “If my sister and I had been closer while she was still alive, I could’ve done something to prevent her death”
- “If I donate money to charity every day, can my mom be cured?”
Why Does Bargaining Happen in Grief?
Bargaining typically develops as a coping mechanism to adjust after a loss or process approaching demise. When people are in a fragile mental state and feel powerless, bargaining can be a way of regaining partial control about what is about to unfold. For some, bargaining serves as hope for a favorable outcome, even when it’s illogical; for others it is a transient distraction from the emotional distress of their grief.3
When Does Bargaining Become a Problem?
The bargaining stage of grief, as with others, is part of the healing process. However, it can become problematic when obsessive thoughts, excessive guilt, extreme sorrow, and other symptoms related to the loss persist. When this occurs, the grief may be depleting your well-being and significantly interfering with important areas of functioning.4 This may put you at risk for developing prolonged grief disorder. Additionally, emotions associated with the bargaining stage can cause behavioral issues, such as anger in children.
How to Cope with the Bargaining Stage of Grief
Although the bargaining stage of grief is part of the healing process, it’s still shattering. It can impact someone’s well-being, quality of life, work, relationships, and mood. Yet there are healthy ways to help you navigate the bargaining stage of grief with more ease, such as writing and journaling, honoring your grief, and finding social and educational resources.
Below are five strategies to help you cope with the bargaining stage of grief:
Acknowledge Your Grief
Suppressing your grief can temporarily work and is often conceptualized in the denial stage, but the pain of your loss will eventually come back if not processed properly. Thus, recognizing your grief and pain can be key in prompting you to actively manage the uncomfortable emotions that come with it and begin working your way towards inner peace.
Write About It
Journaling is a healthy outlet to alleviate your suffering and express your grief outside of yourself. Although it may feel difficult, writing can enable you to identify and process your grief-related thoughts and emotions and help diminish the intensity of your distress. If you’re not sure where to start, there are many grief journaling prompts available.
Honor Your Grief
Allow yourself to feel the diversity of your emotions and find ways to honor your grief, such as forming grief rituals and finding ways to deal with grief during the holidays and other difficult times in advance. Cry if you need to, light a candle in your loved one’s name, or laugh about a funny anecdote. How you mourn is your personal choice. What’s important (when you’re ready) is that you’re able to healthily channel your pain and uncomfortable feelings.
Read or Listen to a Podcast
Whether you read about grief, loss, or an unrelated topic, reading or listening to an audio book or podcast can serve as a transient relaxing escape, bring you inspiration, and reduce your stress levels. If you choose to read and learn more about grief, there are many books about grief and grief podcasts available.
Seek Support
Finding support in people who are accepting like a close friend, a place of worship, or bereavement group, can be a vital source for your healing. Having social and moral solidarity enable you to talk about your loss, ease your grief, receive encouragement, and help you feel less alone.
Talk About It
While it can be painful, talking about your loss might help you connect with others experiencing similar emotions and open the door for you to learn additional coping mechanisms. For example, you may find that explaining death to a child who has experienced the loss of a pet or death of a parent can be difficult; however, this can be an opportunity to celebrate the deceased’s memory and see the loss from a new perspective. If you are struggling with what to say to someone who lost a loved one, make sure you avoid trying to “fix” the situation and emotions they feel, listen empathetically, and provide support.
Practice Self-Care
Because grieving can affect your mental and physical health, it is important to find the best forms of self-care for you.5 So, prioritize activities and habits that will enhance your overall health, like eating nutritiously, practicing mindfulness or meditation, exercising, and having consistent routines. Sleep and mental health are closely related, therefore getting quality sleep is also crucial to your overall wellness. Nurturing your wellbeing can give you the necessary strength to endure your grief and start healing.
How Long Does the Bargaining Stage of Grief Last?
The bargaining stage doesn’t necessarily have a fixed timeline or even closure. As Kessler and Kübler-Ross indicated, while people often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months, the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours, and people may switch between them in a non-linear fashion throughout the grieving process.3
How Hard is the Bargaining Stage of Grief to Go Through?
Grief is unique to each person, and responses to loss can widely vary among individuals. The level of complexity and difficulty in navigating any of the stages really depends on multiple factors, like your personality, level of resilience, the nature of your loss, your relationship with the deceased, and cultural background, among others. While there isn’t an easy route for working through this phase, its intensity can dissipate over time and with the adoption of effective coping strategies.3, 4, 5
How Can I Move Past the Bargaining Stage of Grief?
The stages of grief don’t necessarily flow in order–you may skip, get stuck, regress or experience more than one stage at a time. It’s hard to predict how people will cope or how long the bargaining phase might last. Nonetheless, the mental exhaustion from bargaining coupled with the passage of time eventually leads people to realize that their loss is permanent and come to terms with this reality.3
When to Seek Professional Help for Grief
Most individuals can healthily adapt to loss over time; typically, they experience grief in waves that have no major impact in overall functioning. For others, the pain of grief can be excruciating and persist longer than usual, affecting their well-being and important life domains. Eventually this chronic grief can develop into more serious conditions, such as depression, anxiety disorders, substance use disorder, prolonged grief disorder, persistent complex bereavement disorder, physical health problems, among others. 4, 5, 6, 7
If you are struggling with grief, it’s important that you seek professional help in addition to incorporating some of the self-help strategies above. While it may be especially helpful to find a grief counseling specialist, professional help can come in any form of psychotherapy or counseling.
Professional help and support options for grief include:8, 9
- Grief counseling: This type of counseling support (sometimes referred to as grief therapy) is helpful to those who are dealing with significant distress as a result significant endings or losses brought about by a major change in their lives (e.g., divorce, job loss, disability, immigration).
- Support groups: These may take place online or in-person and can be peer-led or facilitated by a mental health professional or religious leader, depending on the setting. These can be helpful in providing social support to people via shared experiences. It’s important to choose a support group where you feel comfortable and welcomed. If you notice that the group is endorsing unhealthy or counterproductive ways of coping, pressuring you to “work through” your grief or shunning you for how you are grieving then this may not be the appropriate support group for you.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): One of the most common and effective therapeutic approaches used to address grief concerns, CBT can help a person in combating and reframing distressful grief-related thoughts, encourage acceptance of a loss, reduce avoidance, and more.
- Complicated grief treatment: This structured approach usually consists of three phases centered on adapting to the loss and resolving grief. This specialized treatment is useful for people experiencing more severe and complex grief issues. It encourages and enables individuals to confront their loss while providing effective strategies to restore their ability to lead more fulfilling lives moving forward.
- Faith-based counseling: This is generally provided by a professional trained in theology and mental health and follows the traditional therapeutic model while incorporating theological or spiritual interventions in treatment. Pastoral counseling may be valuable for those who want a religious component and/or seek spiritual guidance in their treatment.
Final Thoughts
The grieving process is very personal, and everyone deals with it in their own way. It is normal to grieve for weeks, months, or years. Nevertheless, knowing about the different stages of grief can help you better cope with the emotional challenges you may face after a loss. If you’re struggling with grief, remember to practice self-care and seek social and professional support.
For Further Reading
Bargaining Stage of Grief Infographics
