Theory and background

The Four Rooms of Change is a change theory. It explains how individuals and groups react during times of crisis and development. Claes Janssen is the originator of the theory.

The Four Rooms of Change, often called the four room apartment, originated from psychologist and researcher Claes Janssen’s research. His research shows how individuals or groups travel through different stages during change processes.

Background to the theory — the research in brief

Claes Janssen’s groundbreaking research at Stockholm University in the 1970s was unique and earned him a docent in education.

Claes Janssen explored the willingness and unwillingness to censor: He examined censorship of oneself, others, and events in the outside world.

The research also dealt with the willingness or unwillingness to increase self-understanding — one’s own and that of others. Lastly, it dealt with the experience of belonging and exclusion, as well as the consequences of both, both individually and organizationally.

Janssen’s research led to the theory of the Four Rooms of Change. His doctoral thesis, the culmination of 11 years of research, is titled Personal Dialectics: On Self-Censorship, Outsider Experiences, and Integration. It was published by Liber in 1975.

In The Four Rooms of Change, A Practical Everyday Psychology (1996 and 2006), Janssen delves deeper into the Four Rooms Model, which is based on the theory of the four psychological rooms.

The core of the theory—the rooms, movement between them, our different preferences and a helicopter view of what’s happening in a group or an organization—can be conveyed to small or large groups in four to five hours with lasting results.

Read more about the Four Rooms of Change

• Main page about the Four Rooms of Change
• The models in the Four Rooms of Change
• The history of the Four Rooms of Change
• The Four Rooms of Change around the world
• Trademarks and rights
• Quality Assurance
• Criticism of the Four Rooms of Change