How People Change

Abstract

It is possible to argue that change lies at the heart of psychology. Certainly, for clinical psychology, a discipline devoted to selected effective interventions that are designed to produce salutory change, the course and nature of change is a central issue. Before we examine how people change, we might address the question of whether they change at all. Certainly, people do change their behaviors and their attitudes, but do they change feelings, values, character traits, or other more substantial features? Probably, at times, but not easily and not quickly. What we have in this volume is a series of accounts of change, where it occurs, under what circumstances, and how it is best understood and explained. I would like to indicate the conclusions I have drawn from the chapters in this volume, not necessarily the conclusions they have drawn, or even would agree with, but the thoughts stimulated in me by exposure to this spectrum of presentations: