By Rajnish (“Raj”) Mago, MD (bio)
All mental health clinicians have heard about the “stages of change,” and most can (with a bit of difficulty) remember the stages and name them. For many years, I could name the stages of change but was not using them to decide what kinds of things to say to my patients. That is, the stages of change were just some theory and not something of great day-to-day practical use for helping my patients.
But I have changed! I have learned how, for a particular behavior, identifying the person’s stage of change allows us to match the stage of change with the appropriate interventions, that is, what we should say and do to try to help that person.
The reason for doing this is that if the person is not matched with the right kind of intervention based on stages of change, then the intervention either is resisted or not adopted, or it somehow backfires. Treatment providers have blamed this on the person’s motivation or desire to change rather than understanding that their intervention was too advanced for the person to carry out or more appropriate for someone who was further along the stages of change. Another practical reason is that it doesn’t feel like a struggle if you match the stage with the right intervention. It is like choosing the right key for the right lock.
In this article, we will:
– Briefly review each of the stages of change, including how we would know what stage of change a particular patient is in right now with regard to a particular behavior.
– Correct a few common misconceptions about the stages of change
– Cash in! For each stage of change, we will make several specific recommendations for what is most likely to be helpful.
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