The Philosophy of Transitions

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The Origins of Liminality

There are moments when we’re neither here nor there, suspended between what was and what’s next.

French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep gave this state a name: liminality, the “betwixt and between” phase of life’s rites of passage. 

Van Gennep (1873–1957) was born in Ludwigsburg, Germany, to a Dutch mother and a French father. His multilingual, multicultural household inspired him to study linguistics, folklore, and ethnography.

He was drawn to both the ordinary and the extraordinary in everyday life. Traveling in North Africa, Europe, and French colonies, he studied everything from weddings, funerals, and seasonal festivals to distant tribes and exotic ceremonies. His 1909 book Les Rites de Passage mapped how human beings ritualize endings and beginnings, and why these rituals matter.

He noticed something universal: humans everywhere struggle with ambiguity and create rituals to manage the turbulence of change.

The Psychology of Endings

Today, most of us face transitions without ritual. A job ends, a relationship dissolves, a pet dies, a chapter closes. Without a ritualistic anchor point, the anxiety, disorientation, and vulnerability of endings leave us feeling adrift.

Psychologist Dan McAdams, who studies life stories, discovered that the way we narrate endings predicts how we begin again. 

People who construct coherent, meaningful stories about their past transitions tend to adjust more smoothly, with better mental health.

McAdams found recurring themes in the storytelling of the people he studied: coherence (the logical flow of events), growth (how adversity leads to learning or change), and agency (a sense of acting rather than being a passive victim).

Storytelling matters because it gives shape to what would otherwise be a fragmented, painful experience. With change comes loss, and with loss comes grief. A sorrow for what was and what will never be.

Psychoanalyst Isca Wittenberg explored this specific part of grief, called “secondary loss”: the imagined future that will never exist.

A retiree mourns not only the loss of daily work but the self who would have achieved one more promotion. A widow grieves not only her partner but the vacations and old age they had planned together. A college football player grieves not only a career-ending injury but also the loss of the identity tied to one day playing in the big leagues.

Another part of the transition process are the waves of emotions that coincide with what Christina Rasmussen, a grief educator, calls “second firsts.” These are the realizations of loss that come after the loss itself: the first birthday without a loved one, the first meal alone, the first new job. These moments also play a role in reconstructing identity.

Naming the “lost futures” and acknowledging the “second firsts,” Wittenberg argues, is crucial. Those who ritualize them tend to integrate the change more fully, rather than feeling permanently suspended.

Rituals for the In-Between

Transitions come in many forms: some are publicly recognized (weddings, funerals) and others are what researcher Kenneth Doka named disenfranchised grief—losses that aren’t openly supported, such as miscarriage, infertility, job loss, pet death, abandoned dreams, and more.

No matter if the transition is culturally recognized or not, choosing to participate in storytelling and “invented” rituals after loss can change identity. It doesn’t need to be elaborate or publicly shared on social media, but it should be an intentionally designed symbolic act.

Write a farewell letter. Plant something. Light a candle. Take a last walk. Create a “closure box” filled with objects from that chapter. Play a song that marks the goodbye.

Symbolic markers work even if you don’t “believe” in them, say researchers. It’s the structure and intention that signal to the psyche: this ending is real, and it’s safe to move forward.

As Heraclitus reminded us more than two thousand years ago: you cannot step into the same river twice. (Or maybe you just heard Pocahontas singing it as you read that.) 

Change is the only constant. Honoring the transition experience will not only integrate it but make it a meaningful part of your larger life narrative. 

If today you’re finding yourself in the betwixt and between, is there a ritual or ceremony you could use to honor the ending and the new beginning?

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