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By Patrick Wright for ABC Photo: 123RF Most people have heard of the "five stages of grief".  The idea is that as we grieve, we progress through different stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This popular concept was introduced by Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. What might surprise you is that, despite its popularity, there is no scientific basis for the model and experts say it can be more harmful than helpful. "There is no evidence that people move through these stages - or that the stages even exist," says Chris Hall, a psychologist and chief executive of Grief Australia. How the five stages model came about Kübler-Ross developed the five stages model while working with terminally ill people in US hosp...

By Lisa Richwine and Tyler Clifford, Reuters Matthew Perry was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his house in October 2023. Photo: Chris Delmas / AFP Two doctors and three others including a personal assistant to Matthew Perry were charged with supplying the Friends star with large quantities of ketamine, the powerful sedative that led to his death nearly a year ago, authorities said. The defendants, including a woman known in Los Angeles as the "Ketamine Queen", were part of "a broad underground criminal network" that distributed the drug to the actor and others, US Attorney Martin Estrada said. "These defendants took advantage of Mr Perry's addiction issues to enrich themselves," Estrada said at a news conference in Los Angeles. US Attorney for the Central District of Californi...

By Brooke Fryer, Stephanie Boltje, Ali Russell and Kirstie Wellauer of the ABC's indigenous affairs team An Aboriginal flag is flown during a Black Lives Matter protest in Perth. Photo: AFP / TREVOR COLLENS Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the names of people who have died. This story contains some confronting details. "Appalling and shocking." That's how a Senate committee has described the stories it heard during the two-year inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children. It heard there had been "little, if any, justice" for those victims and their families. Among the recommendations presented this week, the committee called for a widespread overhaul of police practices, a culturally appropriate and "nationally sig...

By Olivia Willis of ABC Mpox virus particles. Photo: SERGII IAREMENKO/SCIENCE PHOTO L The rapid surge of mpox in multiple African countries has prompted the World Health Organization to sound its highest level of alert. On Wednesday, the UN agency declared a global health emergency in response to a severe outbreak of the viral disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has spread to at least four neighbouring countries where it has not been reported before. The WHO announcement follows a decision earlier this week by the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to also declare mpox a public health emergency. More than 15,600 mpox cases and 537 deaths have been detected in the DRC this year, a situation the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Gebrselassie...