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Loy Machedo's Book Review - Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes by William Bridges

1,936 views · Published 8 May 2013 · 4:02 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Loy Machedo · 2013 · Education

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William Bridges is an internationally known speaker, author, and consultant who advises individuals and organizations in how to deal productively with change. His ten books include an expanded third edition of his best-seller, Managing Transitions (2009), and the updated second edition of Transitions (2004), which together have sold over one million copies. 

He focuses on the Transition, or psychological reorientation, people must go through to come to terms with changes in their lives. His three-phase model of Endings, Neutral Zone and New Beginnings is widely known. 

Educated originally in the humanities at Harvard, Columbia, and Brown Universities, he was (until his own career change in 1974) a professor of American Literature at Mills College, Oakland, CA. He is a past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. The Wall Street Journal listed him as one of the top ten independent executive development

Transitions - Moving, Change of Environment, College, New Jobs, Relationships, Divorce, Marriage, Child, Death in the Family, Job Loss are all challenges in life. In this book, the author provides solutions to deal with such transitions. 

According to the author, Transition by itself has three stages that overlap, come and go.

1. Endings: It is useful to identify what is ending in your life. 
2. Neutral Zone: This can look and feel like Pointless, Aimless & Rudderless. 
3. New Beginnings: The next phase. 

The book is also divided into three sections.
The Need for Change
The Transition Process
And finally a very interesting Epilogue. 

In the Epilogue, Bridges uses the story of Psyche and Amor, and the trials of Psyche in her task to be reunited with Amor, to illustrate the power of transitions. 

Moment of Truth
I felt the book really dragged itself out quite a bit. But then to think about it, I do not know how else could the author have said it differently. Many times I felt he was just repeating himself over and over again. Surprisingly, I myself went into a depression after reading this book and took a few days to contemplate about my life. So I believe this book has substance and may relate to people at different points of their life. 

Overall Rating 
7 out of 10 for its wisdom. 
4 out of 10 for boring me with its repetitive nature. 

Loy Machedo
loymachedo.com | loymachedo.tv

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