What Is the Bargaining Stage of Grief?
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Grief is a difficult emotion to grapple with, and it’s usually a drawn-out process that goes through many stages. One of those stages is the bargaining stage, which is basically a defense mechanism.
It’s important to point out that not everyone goes through the stages of grief that have been popularized. “Some people do not go through the stages, or in that order, and some stages do not apply for some people,” says psychologist Paul Coleman, PsyD, author of Finding Peace When Your Heart Is in Pieces.
Still, the stages of grief are common and plenty of people can relate to them. But what is the bargaining stage of grief and how can you know if you’re in it? Mental health experts break it down.
What are the stages of grief?
In the book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD, spells out the five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
The stages, she explains in the book, are an attempt to process the change that comes from a loss and protect yourself while you’re learning to adapt to a new reality after the loss. While the stages are consistent, the actual grieving process can look different for everyone, Dr. Kubler-Ross says.
What is the bargaining stage of grief?
The bargaining stage of grief is a stage in which you may try to negotiate with yourself or with a higher power to try to undo the loss, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).
It’s characterized by an attempt to negotiate a deal with God or fate that would put off your own death or that of someone else who is important to you, or that would end another loss.
“It is a defense mechanism and it means that someone has not yet emotionally accepted the reality of pending death,” Coleman says.
What does bargaining look like?
Bargaining can involve thoughts that are usually irrational, says psychologist John Mayer, PhD, author of Family Fit: Find Your Balance in Life. That can including “if only” thoughts like, “If only I had visited more, the loss wouldn’t have happened” or “If I do X, the loss will be taken away.”
“It can also include pleading or begging for the loss not to occur or to be reversed,” Mayer says.
“Some people may bargain with God,” Coleman says, citing thoughts like, "If you cure a loved one, I will do X for you" as an example.
“After a death, survivors may wonder if they did enough to prevent the death or did enough in general for the person that died,” Coleman says. “They go back to a point in time before someone died and imagine what could have been done differently, almost as if by obsessing about it they can change history. Of course, they cannot. So it means they still have not yet reached the place of acceptance.”
The bargaining stage may also include fear, anxiety, and blaming yourself or others for the loss, says clinical psychologist Thea Gallagher, PsyD, a clinical assistant professor at NYU Langone Health and cohost of the Mind in View podcast.
How to move through the bargaining stage of grief
Grief can look different for everyone but “the only way through grief is through it,” Gallagher says. Because of that, “you have to do the work to get to the other side,” she says.
Coleman says that it is important to realize that it's “normal and appropriate to grieve” and that regrets can be normal when someone is grieving. “But going back in time to change history is another way of defending against the reality of loss,” he says. “Emotional acceptance is key to all kinds of grief. To be able to be sad about what happened, even horribly sad, but accepting the reality will be a place where gratitude for what was and hope for what can be takes root.”
If you can’t do that, he says, you are “wrestling with reality [and] reality always wins.”
There is no set time frame for getting through this stage, Mayer says. “The length does not make it good or bad grieving,” he adds.
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