The Cycle of Change
The Cycle of Change model (sometimes and more formally called the Transtheoretical Model) associated with Prochaska and DiClimente is one of the most influential pieces of thinking about behavioural change. It developed from the simple observation that people cannot simply be divided into two categories – the ‘doing’ and the ‘not doing’ or the ‘motivated’ and the others – that people will have a range of feelings at different times about their risk taking behaviour and it will take more than one attempt to change some behaviours. The ideas it encapsulates underpin much treatment for substance misuse in the UK. It paved the way for techniques like motivational interviewing and relapse prevention.
The model is drawn up in various ways but is normally seen as having six stages.
These are
Whilst the model is used widely across health and social care to help with a colossal range of behaviours, serious questions about it remain. It has been given most rigorous validation in the smoking world but its acceptance within the drugs and alcohol treatment community has not always been empirically tested. Some researchers argue that it should be abandoned all together especially as a model that is used to predict what may happen.
If the model is simply seen as an illustration of processes involved in intentional change rather than as a rigid and defined pattern that fits everyone, it seems to make sense of both clinical practice and people’s own experiences of what happens.
