ABSTRACT
Some crucial aspects of psychotherapy transcend the particular clients, therapists, or treatments involved. The research of James Prochaska and his colleagues has illuminated one crucial dimension: the clients' stage of change. Understanding where clients are in the stages of change can be enormously beneficial to the progress of psychotherapy. Prochaska, professor of psychology at the University of Rhode Island, and DiClemente, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, and Norcross at the University of Scranton. He examined the stages of change that people traverse in dealing with such problems as depression, anxiety and panic disorders, marital discord, eating disorders, smoking, alcoholism, and delinquency. Whatever the impact of treatment matching, they offer a view of therapy that can prove extremely valuable to all therapists regardless of their theoretical orientation or the kinds of clients treated in their practice. Although tracking where clients are in their stage of change requires a little effort, few pieces of information have proven as valuable.
