Part 3: Beyond the Stages—Searching for a Framework That Could Hold Real Grief

By the time I returned to my dissertation and settled on the topic of the African American experience of pet loss, I knew I needed a framework that could hold the complexity of grief rather than compress it into a single path or universal formula. I had lived enough loss to understand that grief is never one thing, and the grief literature confirmed what experience had already taught me: people grieve differently, for different reasons, in different ways, and in different cultural landscapes.

What I needed was a framework that could hold that truth.

Before I landed on the one that ultimately fit, I revisited several theories that helped shape my understanding, even if they were not the right lens for my study on African American pet loss.

Understanding the Many Faces of Grief

One of the first things I encountered in the literature was the reminder that grief is universal, but the way people experience it is not. Personality, culture, religious beliefs, community norms, economic circumstances, and racial discrimination all influence the way grief is expressed and carried. Some people cry openly; others grieve quietly. Some find comfort in ritual; others find it in solitude. Some feel supported; others feel invisible.

Grief is shaped by the world we live in and the identities we carry within it.

This diversity meant that no single model could ever fully explain the experience. It also meant I needed to look carefully at what each theory offered, what it left out, and how well it could speak to the people whose stories I hoped to honor.

Early Grief Models: Helpful, But Incomplete

Like many researchers, I began with the foundational grief theories. Going beyond Kubler-Ross, this included Freud’s early idea of grief work, Bowlby’s phases of mourning (influenced by attachment theory), and Worden’s task model. These theories were important in their time because they gave shape to something that had long felt shapeless. They helped people name the experience, and they offered guidance when few formal resources existed.

But these theories and models also framed grief as a largely linear process, suggesting that emotions unfold in a predictable order or that healing involves completing certain tasks.

There were pieces of truth in these models, but they did not match what I knew from lived experience. Grief rarely moves neatly from one point to another. There is no checklist that makes it easier. There is no fixed end point where the work is complete. And for many people, especially in marginalized communities, grief is interwoven with cultural expectations, silence, spirituality, racism, and resilience in ways that early grief models simply did not address.

I appreciated these theories for what they contributed, but they were not enough for the study I was building.

Coping and Stress Models: Insightful, Yet Still Not the Whole Story

In addition to these foundational theories, I explored broader theories connected to coping and stress. These included cognitive stress theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), stress response models (Horowitz, 2011), the two-track model of bereavement (Rubin, 1981), and the idea of incremental grief (Cook & Oltjenbruns 1998). Each of these offered valuable insight.

Cognitive stress theory helped explain how people appraise and respond to difficult situations. Stress response theories shed light on patterns like intrusion and avoidance. The two-track model suggested that grief affects both our daily functioning and our continuing bond with the person or pet who died. Incremental grief illustrated how one loss can intensify another, especially when grief has layered over time.

These models deepened my understanding, but they addressed only parts of the experience. They were more focused on coping or functioning rather than on the full, lived complexity of grief, especially within cultural contexts. They added pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole picture.

The more I learned, the clearer it became that many traditional grief models were built from particular cultural contexts, often rooted in White, Western, middle-class experiences. They tended to emphasize individual coping and internal processes, often assuming a predictable psychological progression.

But grief in the African American community cannot be understood without considering history, community, faith traditions, racism, and the ways families, kinship networks, and unique attachment figures hold one another. Added to that, grief related to pet loss introduces its own layers, including societal minimization, cultural narratives about animals, and a deep emotional bond that is often overlooked or dismissed.

I needed a framework that could hold all of that complexity without forcing it into a single narrative.

Realizing What I Needed in a Framework

By this point in the journey, I realized I needed a theory that could hold the real-life complexity of grief. That meant a framework that did several things at once:

• Acknowledged grief as dynamic, not linear
• Allowed space for movement, contradiction, and fluctuation
• Recognized cultural and contextual influences
• Positioned coping as an ongoing process rather than a task list
• Made room for community, identity, spirituality, and silence
• Honored continuing bonds without forcing closure
• Reflected the lived experience of African American adults grieving a companion animal

The earlier models provided the foundation, but they did not fully support this vision. They offered insight, but not the whole truth.

I needed something that spoke to the natural back and forth of feeling okay and then not okay again, the rhythm between remembering and rebuilding, between vulnerability and strength. I needed a framework that could mirror the real patterns of grief rather than prescribe how those patterns should unfold.

It may seem counterintuitive to seek a model for an experience as personal and unpredictable as grief, but I needed a framework that could hold complexity without flattening it. That search eventually led me to the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement, which I will explore in Part 4.

References

Cook, A. S., & Oltjenbruns, K. (1998). Dying and grieving: Life span and family
perspectives. Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Horowitz, M. J. (2011). Stress response syndromes: PTSD, grief, adjustment, and
dissociative disorders. Jason Aronson, Incorporated.

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing
Company.

Rubin, S. (1981). A two-track model of bereavement: Theory and application in research. Am J Orthopsychiatry, 51(1), 101–109.