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Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives by William R. Miller Phd
Most of us walk through each day expecting few surprises. If we want to better ourselves or our lives, we map out a path of gradual change; perhaps in therapy or a 12-step group. University of New Mexico psychologists William Miller and Janet C'de Baca were longtime scholars and teachers of this approach to self-improvement when they became intrigued by a different sort of change that was sometimes experienced by people and often described as "a bolt from the blue" or "seeing the light." When they placed a request in a local newspaper for people's stories of unexpected personal transformation, the deluge of of responses was astounding.
These compelling stories of epiphanies and sudden insights inspired Miller and C'de Baca to examine the experience of "quantum change" through the lens of scientific psychology. Where does quantum change come from? Why do some of us experience it, and what kind of people do we become as a result? The answers that this book arrives at yield remarkable insights into how human beings achieve lasting change--sometimes, even, in spite of ourselves.
Drs. Miller and C'de Baca began their collaborative research on quantum change in 1990, and this book is the first full report of their work.
These compelling stories of epiphanies and sudden insights inspired Miller and C'de Baca to examine the experience of "quantum change" through the lens of scientific psychology. Where does quantum change come from? Why do some of us experience it, and what kind of people do we become as a result? The answers that this book arrives at yield remarkable insights into how human beings achieve lasting change--sometimes, even, in spite of ourselves.
Drs. Miller and C'de Baca began their collaborative research on quantum change in 1990, and this book is the first full report of their work.
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First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
William R. Miller
112 books59 followersWilliam Richard Miller is an American clinical psychologist, an emeritus distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Miller and Stephen Rollnick are the co-founders of motivational interviewing.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 31, 2022
When Epiphanies and sudden insights transform ordinary lives. The books is divided into 4 parts: what the person was like before the event, the event, results of the event and analysis. Epiphanies come upon you suddenly and totally transform your life while insights work more slowly to transform you.
"Self-actualization isn't in achieving - it's in peace. It's in contentment and being who you are, celebrating who you are, and knowing who you are. So few people know that."
The last chapter has a wonderful analysis of the effects of transformation.
1. Knowing the truth - profound change can and does occur in human lives, sometimes quite rapidly and you develop another way of knowing.
2. Beyond the Self - our day-to-day material reality is but a small part of all that is. Something else is out there that cannot be perceived through the physical senses.
3. Possessions now seem unimportant. Acquisition of wealth often falls from first place to last.
4. The Nature of Spiritual Reality - you feel unafraid in the presence of the Other - "I have a clear sense that I will be taken care of, that I don't have to be dramatically concerned with events. The future will take care of itself".
5. Acceptance - for oneself and for others. Forgiveness becomes a central value
6. Interconnectedness - all people are somehow linked, intimately and profoundly. Love is what we are and what we are meant to be.
All of life is a gift, and each day a new opportunity.
You can learn a lot from reading this book.
"Self-actualization isn't in achieving - it's in peace. It's in contentment and being who you are, celebrating who you are, and knowing who you are. So few people know that."
The last chapter has a wonderful analysis of the effects of transformation.
1. Knowing the truth - profound change can and does occur in human lives, sometimes quite rapidly and you develop another way of knowing.
2. Beyond the Self - our day-to-day material reality is but a small part of all that is. Something else is out there that cannot be perceived through the physical senses.
3. Possessions now seem unimportant. Acquisition of wealth often falls from first place to last.
4. The Nature of Spiritual Reality - you feel unafraid in the presence of the Other - "I have a clear sense that I will be taken care of, that I don't have to be dramatically concerned with events. The future will take care of itself".
5. Acceptance - for oneself and for others. Forgiveness becomes a central value
6. Interconnectedness - all people are somehow linked, intimately and profoundly. Love is what we are and what we are meant to be.
All of life is a gift, and each day a new opportunity.
You can learn a lot from reading this book.
June 14, 2022
3.5/5
"Self-actualization isn't in achieving - it's in peace. It's in contentment and being who you are, celebrating who you are and knowing who you are. So few people know that."
Everyone knows about the gradual type of change - that people can change themselves and their lives as a slow, methodical process, where each choice builds upon one another and is gradually integrated. But these two researchers discovered that some people experience a different type of change - change that comes upon them in an instant. A sudden flash of insight or epiphany that changes them fundamentally as a person and even the whole trajectory of their lives, often seeming to come out of nowhere.
They interviewed 50 people who had experienced this, what they call "quantum change ". In this book they basically discuss what they learned from these interviews, the common threads, and they present a few people's stories in full.
At the end they try to wrap it up and come to some kind of useful conclusion, but ultimately it seems they weren't really able to. They'd hoped they may be able to harness this type of change to help those who need it, but what they found was that the people and situations in which it happened seemed to be fairly random, and the flash of insight or epiphany often comes completely unprecipitated. A lot of people had hit absolute rock bottom when it happened - but not all. And certainly plenty of people hit rock bottom without being gifted this instant change in perspective, so it certainly seems very random.
A lot of the people experienced it as quite spiritual (not necessarily religious), like a type of awakening. I think this is what I found the most interesting about the whole thing. The common concepts among these very different people and experiences were of a "we are all one" type awareness, a feeling of peace and being loved, and being connected to something much vaster, usually leading to them being much more calm, compassionate and centred people afterwards. That such a wide array of different people can have such similar insights really makes you think that there must be something to this, and makes me feel more faith in my own concepts of spirituality.
The read was a little unsatisfying in the lack of practical takeaways, but I did still find it really interesting to read these stories and see the commonalities in them.
"Self-actualization isn't in achieving - it's in peace. It's in contentment and being who you are, celebrating who you are and knowing who you are. So few people know that."
Everyone knows about the gradual type of change - that people can change themselves and their lives as a slow, methodical process, where each choice builds upon one another and is gradually integrated. But these two researchers discovered that some people experience a different type of change - change that comes upon them in an instant. A sudden flash of insight or epiphany that changes them fundamentally as a person and even the whole trajectory of their lives, often seeming to come out of nowhere.
They interviewed 50 people who had experienced this, what they call "quantum change ". In this book they basically discuss what they learned from these interviews, the common threads, and they present a few people's stories in full.
At the end they try to wrap it up and come to some kind of useful conclusion, but ultimately it seems they weren't really able to. They'd hoped they may be able to harness this type of change to help those who need it, but what they found was that the people and situations in which it happened seemed to be fairly random, and the flash of insight or epiphany often comes completely unprecipitated. A lot of people had hit absolute rock bottom when it happened - but not all. And certainly plenty of people hit rock bottom without being gifted this instant change in perspective, so it certainly seems very random.
A lot of the people experienced it as quite spiritual (not necessarily religious), like a type of awakening. I think this is what I found the most interesting about the whole thing. The common concepts among these very different people and experiences were of a "we are all one" type awareness, a feeling of peace and being loved, and being connected to something much vaster, usually leading to them being much more calm, compassionate and centred people afterwards. That such a wide array of different people can have such similar insights really makes you think that there must be something to this, and makes me feel more faith in my own concepts of spirituality.
The read was a little unsatisfying in the lack of practical takeaways, but I did still find it really interesting to read these stories and see the commonalities in them.
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December 5, 2023Personal change matters. When people change, they make their lives better. They find ways to change the world. In Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives, William Miller and Janet C’de Baca explain how these changes can some quickly. Miller is no stranger to change, having spent his life helping people change and having co-developed Motivational Interviewing, which is successful at helping people overcome substance use disorders (SUDs). His curiosity about how people could change quickly rather than the methodological changes that he had spent his career facilitating led to Quantum Change.
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February 15, 2019
Fascinating. Writing style is palatable for the lay reader but content is academic worthy for a psychologist, therapist or behavioral researcher. Tackles a topic that many of us have experience with but little study has been done -those "aha moments" (rightly divided into two categories: cognitive/mindful moment, i.e., true "aha's" out-of-the-blue; and the more mystical, unexplainable experiences often -but not always, attributed to Divine Action). Enjoyed it very much!
February 11, 2019
Interesting book on people who have had flashes of insights that changed them forever. Clearly the authors want to find an explanation but even with their scientific analysis - we're no closer to understanding the mysteries. The stories were slightly repetitive towards the end - but lovely to hear about sudden transformations.
June 25, 2020
Some very interesting stories.
I can't personally relate to them, but they were still quite thoughtful and thorough in detail.
This is a book that I will have to take some time to understand and contemplate moving forward.
I can't personally relate to them, but they were still quite thoughtful and thorough in detail.
This is a book that I will have to take some time to understand and contemplate moving forward.
February 20, 2021
This is not a book you just sit down and read. It is, rather, a book you take bites of and digest a little at a time. Interesting.
September 19, 2022
If you like stories, the book is good.
October 9, 2013
When I first began to read this book, I thought it looked promising, but it hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations.
The authors distinguish between two types of quantum change, the insightful type and the mystical type. Quantum change was defined as a sudden transformation in someone’s life/personality/character. I didn’t really understand all the accounts by those who had had the former type of experience - it seemed they just suddenly stopped smoking or drinking or whatever. Some of the writers explained themselves better, however.
I myself have had several mystical experiences though none of them led to any personal transformation.
The best bit of the book was the personal accounts by each quantum changer. They told their story in their own words, and their accounts were well written/edited.
But I did get a bit confused sometimes, because no names were given, and I couldn’t easily work out whether the person concerned was a man or woman, which I found disorientating. And later in the book when reference was made to the one or the other experience, it was difficult to remember which quantum changer was being referred to – especially as many of the experiences resembled each other quite a bit.
I found the section towards the end of the book where the experiences were being analyzed less readable. It was clear that the authors were mentally-orientated psychologists, and they didn’t really come to any conclusion about the cause of these quantum changes. It was as though the analysis was too mental and perhaps lacked a larger more spiritual overview. I don’t remember any reference to such matters as these events having been planned before birth, any discussion of karmic reasons for them or any such thing. I was left with the strong impression that the analysis was somewhat limited and overly “mental” and this is why no satisfactory conclusions could be reached about the reason for such quantum changes.
Also, it irritated me that the authors kept referring to the character Scrooge in Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” as though he were a real person and not a fictional character. It is true that the character Scrooge had a quantum change, but since he was not a real live person, it seemed unhelpful to treat him as such on a par with the quantum changers whose accounts appeared in the book.
Actually, before discovering this book I hadn’t realized that there were so many cases of people experiencing sudden transformations. Nonetheless, this is not a book that I would firmly recommend that anyone read, though those who have themselves experienced such transformations will no doubt be attracted to the book - and the experiences recounted were definitely of interest, some being quite remarkable, especially some of the mystical type.
The authors distinguish between two types of quantum change, the insightful type and the mystical type. Quantum change was defined as a sudden transformation in someone’s life/personality/character. I didn’t really understand all the accounts by those who had had the former type of experience - it seemed they just suddenly stopped smoking or drinking or whatever. Some of the writers explained themselves better, however.
I myself have had several mystical experiences though none of them led to any personal transformation.
The best bit of the book was the personal accounts by each quantum changer. They told their story in their own words, and their accounts were well written/edited.
But I did get a bit confused sometimes, because no names were given, and I couldn’t easily work out whether the person concerned was a man or woman, which I found disorientating. And later in the book when reference was made to the one or the other experience, it was difficult to remember which quantum changer was being referred to – especially as many of the experiences resembled each other quite a bit.
I found the section towards the end of the book where the experiences were being analyzed less readable. It was clear that the authors were mentally-orientated psychologists, and they didn’t really come to any conclusion about the cause of these quantum changes. It was as though the analysis was too mental and perhaps lacked a larger more spiritual overview. I don’t remember any reference to such matters as these events having been planned before birth, any discussion of karmic reasons for them or any such thing. I was left with the strong impression that the analysis was somewhat limited and overly “mental” and this is why no satisfactory conclusions could be reached about the reason for such quantum changes.
Also, it irritated me that the authors kept referring to the character Scrooge in Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” as though he were a real person and not a fictional character. It is true that the character Scrooge had a quantum change, but since he was not a real live person, it seemed unhelpful to treat him as such on a par with the quantum changers whose accounts appeared in the book.
Actually, before discovering this book I hadn’t realized that there were so many cases of people experiencing sudden transformations. Nonetheless, this is not a book that I would firmly recommend that anyone read, though those who have themselves experienced such transformations will no doubt be attracted to the book - and the experiences recounted were definitely of interest, some being quite remarkable, especially some of the mystical type.
February 13, 2017
Mystical experience
A good and easy read on the subject of mystical experiences by scientists. Many anecdotal stories of peoples true experience.
A good and easy read on the subject of mystical experiences by scientists. Many anecdotal stories of peoples true experience.
October 15, 2015
Started out great, but then lost steam. It focused a lot on addiction which I wasn't expecting since I wasn't familiar with the author. I thought it would be broader on different aspects of what people dealt with and have more of their specific personal narratives. Regardless, it was still interesting and one of the few books I've found that discusses this subject with scientific/psychology foundation.
October 17, 2014
Fantastic book! Stories of people who had sudden changes that put a different spin on their lives. Their lives changed drastically for the better. I, myself, had two of these years year and I am incredibly grateful.
May 10, 2015
I found the stories of change particularly powerful. I had hoped there would be some more analysis about how to help create quantum change.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews