What makes a violinist become a policeman or a monk fall in love? How does someone lose eighteen stone in as many months? Or a follower of radical Islam turn his back on holy war? When can simply taking a new name usher in a new life? & how does a family adapt to the brain injury that changes their son or brother beyond recognition? These & other stories combine with a wealth of smart thinking from psychology philosophy literature & science as Polly Morland unravels the mysteries & the mechanisms of human change Most of us would like to change something about ourselves although all too often we feel that we can't Yet as this book shows change is not an event-it is a process at which we are more skilled than we realise a story we are already good at telling Exploring how some people harness the change that governs all our lives & then succeed in shaping it like master storytellers toward the happy ending of their choosing Polly Morland shows that change is possible for us all Appealing to that part of anyone that is stuck in a rut Metamorphosis is about how & why real people change & how the imagination can become the engine of our transformation too