Stages of Change
Often when working within social services you encounter individuals with behaviors that would need to be changed. However as much as we would want to change these behaviors, these individuals may not be ready to make a change. Due to this fact it often leads to some tension between the client and the worker’s relationship. Trying to force someone to change before they are ready to make a change will always lead to problems within the relationship between the two individuals. So, for this post, I wanted to discuss the theory behind the stages of change.
The Transtheoretical Model of Change is a model that looks at different stages within a person’s readiness to make a change in their life. There are 5 stages within this model: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Some variations of the model include the “termination” stage as the 6th stage, but we’ll discuss that later. Depending on the stage that the individual is in will determine whether or not they will be ready to make a change or even willing to listen to any type of conversation revolving around change.
Precontemplation is the first stage within this model. Normally this could be looked at as the unwilling and in-denial stage. People within this stage have no intention of making the needed changes to their behavior and some could even be unaware that their behavior is an issue. For the sake of this post, we’ll use the scenario of a person that is very unhealthy. They don’t want to make the needed changes to change their health for the better. Any discussions regarding their health they don’t want to hear it and they don’t believe their health is an issue.
Contemplation is the next stage up in this model. At this stage, the individual has become aware that their behavior may be an issue and may be open to changing their behavior. They still need a little pushing at this stage but be careful to not push too hard. One thing to remember about this model is that a person’s level of readiness can go both ways. They can just as easily become ready to change as they can become hesitant. You have to work around their timeline to have the best results. With our scenario, the individual could see how their lifestyle is leading to problems with their everyday life and they may start creating a pros and cons list to see what would happen if they change their behavior versus not changing it.
The Preparation stage is where the individual begins to start planning when they would like to make these changes in their life. They begin to mentally get themselves ready to make these changes as well. The unhealthy person may state that in the next week I’ll begin to eat a little healthier or begin my workout as their changed behavior to address their health concerns.
In the Action stage, the individual has actively made the changes to change their behavior. The date for them to start has come and they’ve begun to work on the behavior that was a hindrance. In the example, the unhealthy individual began to work on their health in a positive way.
The last stage of this model is the Maintenance stage. This stage is where the individual has been able to maintain their changed behavior for a good amount of time, roughly 6+ months. In the example the individual has been eating healthy constantly, ensuring they’ve been receiving the right amount of nutrients, exercising regularly, etc.
Now the 6th stage or Termination stage is the stage where the person has no desire to return to their old ways and their behavior will change forever. In a perfect world, this would always happen but we are talking about actual people. Unfortunately, we all tend to revert to old ways for any number of reasons which is why there is a Relapse section added to this model. Earlier I stated a person can easily become ready as they can become hesitant and that is where the relapse comes in. That healthy person could slip up one week and begin reverting to their unhealthy behaviors and this could lead to them falling back into old habits. Then the process starts from whatever stage they are in.
Even with the possibility of relapse doesn’t mean that all the hard work for attempting to change behavior was for nothing. Because an individual has changed in the past this could possibly increase their chances of returning back to the desired behavior quicker. Regardless it depends on the person and their willingness to change.
Even though this is normally used within social service settings this could be applied to various points within our own lives. Think about when a friend told you about something you were doing but you were hesitant to change, then you slowly started coming around, then you fought with yourself on when you were going to start and then one day you just did it. You may have fallen off and fallen back into bad habits but the satisfaction of actually going through it never left and you have in the back of your mind that you could do it again. Next time you want someone to change their behavior first ask yourself, would they be ready to make that change and then go from there.