Introduction
A major change arrives — a new city, a new role, a break-up, a birth, a leaving. And after the mechanical parts settle, there is a stretch that feels curiously empty. Not painful exactly. Not exciting. Just — unpopulated. That stretch has a name.
Why This Matters
Recognising liminality as a stage of identity change — rather than a symptom of having chosen wrong — changes what a person is willing to sit with, and for how long.
The Science
Ibarra (1999), in Administrative Science Quarterly, studied professional adaptation and described how people transition into new roles by experimenting with provisional selves — temporary identities tried on, evaluated, and revised through observation, imitation, and feedback. Slotter, Gardner, and Finkel (2010), in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, showed across three studies that romantic breakup reduces self-concept clarity, and that this reduction — not the breakup itself — uniquely predicts post-breakup emotional distress, pointing to identity coherence as the operative variable in transition suffering.
Current Research
Contemporary work extends the provisional-self framework beyond professional life into parenting, migration, illness, and elderhood, tracking how new identities cohere over months and years rather than days.
Practical Implications
For anyone in a transition: expect a hollow phase. Do not fill it with the wrong thing to escape it. Design small practices that give the new self something to be built around — shared tasks, repeated presences, small commitments.
Common Misconceptions
**"If the change is good, I shouldn’t feel empty."** The emptiness is part of the change working. **"Emptiness means depression."** Sometimes. Often it is liminality — which is different and workable.
Key Takeaways
- New identities cohere through provisional selves, not sudden arrival.
- Reduced self-concept clarity is the operative variable in transition distress.
- The hollow phase is a stage, not a symptom.