Grief (novel) The stages are denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. The narrator, as well as other characters in the story, slowly passes through these stages in trying to deal with death. During the story, the theme of dealing with grief overcomes the narrator, the landlord and Frank. Premature death grief results from the guilt that they try to deal with because of the AIDS epidemic. Many of their friends, for example one named Nick is overcome by the disease. When told about his HIV, Nick “looked like a deer caught in a car’s headlights for weeks... he even chased the doctor who
Susan Anderson (psychotherapist) of being spurned in a romantic relationship can create a trauma powerful enough "to implant an emotional drain deep within the self that if left unresolved, leeches self-esteem and creates self sabotage". She refers to this as abandonment trauma. Anderson uses / adapts the five phases of grief in the Kübler-Ross model to abandonment. Her framework describing abandonment recovery breaks it down into five phases: Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing, Rage and Lifting (SWIRL). The acronym is designed to depict the cyclonic nature of the grief. While Kübler-Ross, Anderson, and others have attempted to define discrete stages of grief, such as an