Nice discussion Doc, albeit somewhat redundant of your most recent post. I'm skeptical of the specificity of the "Stages" theories (popularized in 1969 by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' Death and Dying). Her Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression & Acceptance have achieved mythic status without any real scientific support. It was refreshing to read the 2007 JAMA (Journal of American Medicine) article :An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief which found that
[quote]Counter to stage theory, disbelief was not the initial, dominant grief indicator. Acceptance was the most frequently endorsed item and yearning was the dominant negative grief indicator from 1 to 24 months postloss.
[/quote] The full abstract is here: JAMA -stages of grief
I realize this is a hot button issue as evident from the study's Yale author's emphatic reply to criticisms:
[quote]In Reply: The stage theory of grief has captured the imaginations of clinicians and the public. Despite its recognized limitations (eg, that it will not predict exactly how every bereaved person will grieve), it remains taught in medical schools, posted on authoritative Web sites (eg, National Cancer Institute),1 and continues to guide thinking about bereavement for many clinicians, educators, and researchers. Although several reviews have concluded that this theory has no support, our study represents the first empirical test of the stage theory. We are aware of no previous study that used the necessary grief measures or the analytic strategy to explicitly test the stage theory of grief.[/quote]
If you want practical examples of Why are We Angry - you can take a look at the most viewed thread on the entire OCF web site : Don't you Just Hate It When... with almost 43 Thousand views (disclaimer:okay, I started that thread and continue to acclaim it so I'm biased).
Of course as EZJim noted, one of our major complaints are the same attitudes of the doctors that you so eloquently skewered in your e-book. Your discussion of how they disregarded you and treated you rings true for many of us.
Myself, I'm going with a much simpler paradigm: you need to fully mourn the life that you lost and then accept the life that you are really living now.
Charm