Schlossberg Transition Model

The topic of transition can be defined as a period of an individual's life where change may occur to cause either a negative or a positive experience. Despite knowing this, it should be mentioned that transitions are a psychological process that individuals go through to come to terms with their new situation whilst the term change signifies an external change in that person's situation,for example, their environment. A theory on transition was introduced by Schlossberg (1981) which was developed in order to broaden the understanding of what exactly these young individuals go through whilst coping with the transitional processes, in particular, what internal and external factors are commonly demonstrated and how practitioners can use this framework

Schlossberg's transition theory can be seen to be the ideal representation at illuminating the sudden turning point in my life. This is because the model begins with highlighting the way in which the event would occur whether it would be unpredictable or predictable in this case the latter would be most applicable. Transitioning from primary school to secondary school is a predictable event that would have taken place with or without one's approval. The model also accentuates the importance of how an event could possibly not only affect the person that's being faced with the transition but also how the people in their lives are impacted, this could suggest that a transition plays a knock on effect. Schlossberg's theory on transition suggests that transitioning from one life event to another can alter a daily schedule that an individual potentially lives by therefore every aspect that I had been conditioned to think was correct was suddenly going to

One of the main points that Hopson states is that transitions are stressful if they are unpredictable, involuntary, unfamiliar or of high magnitude. Adams, Adams, Hayes & Hopson (1976) illustrated this specific model in order to represent the stages in which an individual goes through when transitioning, making sure to take into account the length of these experiences which could be desirable yet undesirable. This specific model of transition can be used to underline my own experience, for example, the first stage is called immobilisation which states that an individual feels overwhelmed at first hand when being faced with the change, this is exactly how I felt when the time came to change from an environment I was so comfortable in to a new surroundings that I was unfamiliar with. Self-doubt is the stage that I highly relate to as it pinpoints the significance of my introverted personality an aspect which other theories on transitions fail to acknowledge. Brammer (1992) had in fact assessed Hopson's model to measure its effectiveness with real-life clients with different transitions in their own lives. They had come to the conclusion that counsellors would be able to guide their clients during difficult changes in their lifecycle by the clear and concise stages that were