Take our Depression Test

Find a therapist to heal from grief

Research shows a strong correlation between grief and anxiety, rumination, fixation, and hypervigilance.

Traditional models of the grieving process can be broadened to include additional responses such as anxiety.

Common anxiety responses to grief include fear to further loss, health anxiety, and loss of safety.

You have heard them before—at this point, they have become part of the parlance of grief and loss—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These “five stages of grief,” introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, are widely accepted and understood as common to the emotional process that follows the death of a loved one. While there have been additions and suggestions to Kübler-Ross’ original model over time, most notably by David Kessler, one of her students, who suggested that “finding meaning” be added to the process, the main tenets of the model remain resonant and relevant today. Even so, grief is more complex than this classic model illustrates. It can include a plethora of emotions that can occur alongside the five that have been popularized over the years.

One of these other emotions that falls within the common feelings associated with grief and loss is anxiety. A 2012 article in Current Psychiatry Reports concludes that “anxiety is a natural response of the attachment system to separation from a loved one … Confrontation with one’s own death is also a natural trigger of anxiety … [and] loss of a loved one can trigger the onset of a [diagnosable] anxiety disorder that, when present, can derail the mourning process and prolong acute grief” (Shear et al., 2012).

Essentially, loss causes us to feel a sense of abandonment, thoughts of our own mortality, and........

© Psychology Today