The Bargaining Stage of Grief: Characteristics and Coping

Bargaining is a natural reaction to grief. Bargaining in grief involves making deals with yourself or God to help yourself feel better. It is one of the primary stages of grief and often occurs alongside other difficult emotions, including denial and anger.

If you’ve lost someone, you would probably be willing to give anything to bring them back. Alternatively, you may wonder whether being a better person or doing something differently could have prevented the loss.

You may even experience these thoughts if you’ve lost something important to you, such as a business, a job, a friendship, a relationship, a physical ability, or a sense of control or independence.

You’re not alone if you feel this way. Many people experience bargaining during their grief process, which is a normal response to loss.

This article explores bargaining as one of the five stages of grief, discusses what bargaining may look like, and suggests some coping strategies that may be helpful.

What Are the Five Stages of Grief?

The five stages of grief is a theory proposed by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-born American psychiatrist. The theory, which was published in 1969 in her book, “On Death and Dying,” says that people grieve in five stages, which are:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The theory offers us a way to conceptualize the grief process, says Dr. Romanoff. It helps us make sense of something difficult.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dr. Kübler-Ross’s theory has helped change the face of medicine because death was a subject many physicians tended to avoid up until then. Dr. Kübler-Ross’s theory became well-known in academic circles and popular culture.

Contemporary Views

However, more recent research shows that the process of grieving may not necessarily follow a set pattern of specific reactions over time. People react to loss in different ways and grief can be messy.

Therefore, Dr. Romanoff explains that a more current interpretation of the theory is that:

• Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are some of the common reactions to loss.
• People may experience these emotions at any time during the grieving process and not necessarily in any particular order.
• Everyone may not necessarily experience all five of these emotions when grieving, as each person tends to have a unique bereavement process.
• Factors such as the severity of and circumstances surrounding the loss, individual differences in personality and temperament, and cultural, spiritual, and religious beliefs can play a role in the person’s grieving process.

What Is Bargaining in Grief?

Bargaining is one of the stages of grief, or one of the experiences you may have if you’re grieving a loss. In this stage, you may find yourself negotiating with yourself, with people around you, with fate, or with a higher power to try and mitigate or undo your loss.

Dr. Romanoff explains that bargaining-type thinking may apply to the past or the present: 

• Bargaining in the present: People may try to make a deal with themselves, or with a higher power for those who are spiritual or religious, under the condition that if they act in a particular way, they might feel better or the situation may improve.
• Bargaining over the past: People may ruminate over ‘what if’ situations and wish to go back and change the past in the hopes of preventing the loss.

Characteristics of the Bargaining Stage of Grief

These are some of the characteristics of the bargaining stage of grief:

• Feeling guilty or ashamed of your thoughts or actions
• Feeling scared, insecure, or anxious
• Ruminating over what could have been
• Holding yourself responsible for the circumstances
• Punishing yourself
• Worrying and overthinking things
• Judging yourself and others
• Making comparisons to others’ circumstances
• Trying to predict the future and assuming the worst
• Wishing or praying for a different outcome
• Thinking or saying “What if…” or “If only I had…” or “If I do this then…”

Examples of Bargaining in Grief

These are some examples of the types of thoughts you may have during the bargaining stage of grief, according to Dr. Romanoff:

• Offering to be a better person, to help others, or to make donations to deal with and manage the pain of the loss.
• Negotiating with fate, a higher power, God, or the universe. 
• Wishing for miracles to negate the loss.
• Bargaining about the past and wondering if the loss wouldn’t have happened if you did certain things differently. For instance, you may think: “If I stopped by his house that night, he would still be here,” or “I gave up on the relationship too quickly; if only I had tried harder, we would still be married.”

When Bargaining in Grief Becomes a Problem

Bargaining is a normal and expected part of grief. However, it can become problematic when it leads to obsessive thinking, excessive rumination, and other feelings that create significant distress.

Complicated grief is a prolonged mourning that keeps you from moving forward and healing after a loss. It is characterized rumination and sorrow that is so intense that it makes it difficult to focus on anything else. Prolonged grief disorder affects about seven percent of bereaved people. 

Coping With the Bargaining Stage of Grief

Dr. Romanoff shares some strategies that can help you cope with the bargaining stage of grief:

Normalize Bargaining in Grief

Bargaining is a way for people to hang on to hope, which is what many people need while they are grieving. Bargaining tends to decrease over time as acceptance of reality starts to sink in.

Give Yourself Time

With time, your pain will likely become more manageable, and the idea of accepting circumstances outside of your control may be more tolerable. For some people, however, grief remains extremely challenging even years after a loss.

Avoid Ruminating Over These Thoughts

A good way to cope during this stage is to try to get perspective and emotional distance from these thoughts, instead of perseverating over them. It can be helpful to share these thoughts with a loved one who can help you rationalize them.

Write Down Your Thoughts and Feelings

It can be a good idea to write down your feelings, wishes, and bargains, and reflect on them so you can become more aware of your true feelings and motives for these thoughts, instead of getting caught up in them.

Shift Your Focus

People are best able to move on from this stage when they decide to shift their focus from what they cannot control to everything they can, as they begin to make changes in their lives that are more productive for them to move forward.

It can even be helpful to start with small things you can control. For example, deep breathing can be beneficial in that it shifts your focus to a very basic thing you can control: your breath.

Get Help If You Need It

If you find yourself caught in a spiral of guilt and blame, or if your grief is overpowering you to the extent that you cannot function even if weeks or months have passed since your loss, it can be helpful to seek treatment from a mental health professional. There are also support groups for grief that you may find helpful.