How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 215

Sticking and cycling
Getting stuck
A common problem with the above cycle is that people get
stuck in one phase. Thus a person may become stuck in denial,
never moving on from the position of not accepting the
inevitable future. When it happens, they still keep on denying it,
such as the person who has lost their job still going into the city
only to sit on a park bench all day.
Getting stuck in denial is common in 'cool' cultures (such as in
Britain, particularly Southern England) where expressing anger
is not acceptable. The person may feel that anger, but may then
repress it, bottling it up inside.
Likewise, a person may be stuck in permanent anger (which is
itself a form of flight from reality) or repeated bargaining. It is
more difficult to get stuck in active states than in passivity, and
getting stuck in depression is perhaps a more common ailment.
Going in cycles
Another trap is that when a person moves on to the next phase,
they have not completed an earlier phase and so move
backwards in cyclic loops that repeat previous emotion and
actions. Thus, for example, a person that finds bargaining not to
be working, may go back into anger or denial.
Cycling is itself a form of avoidance of the inevitable, and going
backwards in time may seem to be a way of extending the time
before the perceived bad thing happens.
Source: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, Macmillan,
NY, 1969
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/ku
bler_ross/kubler_ross.htm

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