Stages-of-Change Model

Abstract

Before you begin to make changes in your life, I would like to introduce you to a useful theory --called the Stages of Change Model, or SCM --about the mind/body stages we go through when we do change. The Stages of Change Model was originally developed in the late 1970's and early 1980's by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente at the University of Rhode Island when they were studying how smokers were able to give up their habits or addiction. The SCM model has been applied to a broad range of behaviors including weight loss, injury prevention, overcoming alcohol, and drug problems among others. The idea behind the SCM is that behavior change does not happen in one step. Rather, people tend to progress through different stages on their way to successful change. Also, each of us progresses through the stages at our own rate. So expecting behavior change by simply telling someone, for example, who is still in the "pre-contemplation" stage that he or she must go to a certain number of AA meetings in a certain time period is rather naive (and perhaps counterproductive) because they are not ready to change. Each person must decide for himself or herself when a stage is completed and when it is time to move on to the next stage. Moreover, this decision must come from the inside you (see developing an internal locus of control) --stable, long term change cannot be externally imposed. In each of the stages, a person has to grapple with a different set of issues and tasks that relate to changing behavior. The Stages of Change The stages of change are:  Precontemplation (Not yet acknowledging that there is a problem behavior that needs to be changed)  Contemplation (Acknowledging that there is a problem but not yet ready or sure of wanting to make a change)  Preparation/Determination (Getting ready to change)  Action/Willpower (Changing behavior)  Maintenance (Maintaining the behavior change) and  Relapse (Returning to older behaviors and abandoning the new changes) Stage One: Precontemplation In the precontemplation stage, people are not thinking seriously about changing and are not interested in any kind of help. People in this stage tend to defend their current bad habit(s) and do not feel it is a problem. They may be defensive in the face of other people's efforts to pressure them to quit. They do not focus their attention on quitting and tend not to discuss their bad habit with others. In AA, this stage is called denial, but at Addiction Alternatives, …