Bargaining

After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce, with people adrift in a maze of "if only..." and "what if..." ideas. We want to go back in time to change reality, to learn about the factors that hindered our lives in the past. This leads to guilt, which is often a companion to bargaining; we find fault in ourselves and what "we think" we could have done differently. In some cases, we may even bargain with the pain.