Transtheoretical Model Of Behavior Change

People often wonder why others engage or do not engage in a certain behavior. Per health psychologists, there are three theories that could provide an explanation as to why people engage in positive or negative health behaviors: health belief model, theory of planned behavior, and the transtheoretical model. Of the three models of behavior change, the transtheoretical model (TTM) is certainly the best model to use since it is considered a journey and people can move between each stage at his/her own pace. Not only does this model lay out specific stages of how to obtain a behavior change, it allows for individuals to fall back and repeat the process. Behavior change can be a very long journey and most of the time, one will fall back and must …show more content…
To demonstrate the process of the transtheoretical model, we can observe the hypothetical situation of a man with a cocaine addiction. This man is snorting two lines a day of cocaine. During the first stage, he would completely deny his addictive problem with cocaine. He may try to use excuses such that two lines a day is not enough to be considered an addiction. During the second stage, he may begin to recognize that his addiction is leading to serious health effects and is becoming a problem. This is where he knows he needs to stop snorting cocaine. Next, he will arrive at the preparation stage. This is where he seeks out help, support, and creates a plan to stop using cocaine. He may ask for family support, seek help from a psychiatrist or a psychologist, join an AA group or throw away any cocaine or other drugs that may substitute cocaine. As mentioned before, I believe that the action stage can be the hardest. This is when he will be clean from his addiction for about two weeks. This can be extremely hard as he may be going through withdrawals. Lastly, he will have pushed through those hard two weeks and go into the last stage. At this point, he will be clean from cocaine for about six …show more content…
I believe that these stages are foundations for helping to guide someone towards behavior change. However, people need to believe in themselves and have self-confidence that they can overcome their behavior change. Self-confidence can provide the mental capability needed when attempting to change one’s behavior. Another explanation as to why the transtheoretical model can create behavior change is support from family or friends. This support can allow for people to feel as if their journey to successful behavior change can also be contributed to their loved