How People Change

In the myth of Daphne and Apollo, Cupid fired two arrows: one causing flight from love, the other passionate attraction. Cupid aimed his first arrow at Daphne, a beautiful nymph who loved her freedom; the next struck Apollo, who lusted after Daphne. Daphne, frightened and intent upon virginity, fled Apollo but was unable to run fast enough. When her strength was almost gone, she sought protection in the familiar waters of her father's river. He answered her prayers: Her hair became leaves, and her feet, roots growing into the ground; she was transformed into a laurel tree. Apollo, kissing the sprouting bark, pledged to honor Daphne by placing a laurel wreath on the head of every hero who won a victory. Unable to evade the consequences of the arrow that wounded her, Daphne called upon the river, the creative power of both nature and time-a symbol of fertility, but also of oblivion-to help her survive when her strength was gone. Daphne's inner triumph in the face of injury is an appropriate sym­ bol for the types of transformation witnessed by psychologists. In his book on symbols, Circlot (1962, p. 173) writes that the crowning of the poet, artist, or conqueror with laurel leaves "presupposes a series of inner victories over the negative and dissipative influence of the basest forces. " Further, the tree "denotes the life of the cosmos: its consistence, growth, proliferation, generative, and regenerative processes" (Circlot, 1962, p. 328).

Contenu

1: How People Change: Introduction.- I. Perspectives from Clinical Psychology.- 2: Questioning the Sacred Cow of the Transference.- 3: The Role of "Accomplices" in Preventing and Facilitating Change.- 4: Transtheoretical Ingredients in Therapeutic Change.- 5: Emotion in the Change Process.- 6: Davanloo's Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy: A Cross-Theoretical Analysis of Change Mechanisms.- 7: Change in the Change Agents: Growth in the Capacity to Heal.- II. Perspectives from Social, Family, and Organizational Psychology.- 8: How to Change Behavior.- 9: Changing Attitudes and Reducing Tensions between People.- 10: The Two Faces of Change: Progression and Regression.- 11: Individual Change in Organizational Settings.- 12: Conflict, Negotiation, and Change.- III. Integration and Conclusions.- 13: How People Change with and without Therapy.- 14: Toward an Integrative Theory of Psychological Change in Individuals and Organizations: A Cognitive-Affective Regulation Model.- How People Change: A Brief Commentary.