By scrutinizing the works of the founders of crisis theory (Lindemann, Caplan, Tyhurst) attention is given to emotional, cognitive and role aspects in a state of crisis. According to Tyhurst, and many recent authors, crisistheory is redefined as a theory of transition. A person faced with the tasks of transition has to move step by step through the transitional period. Every step in the transitional proces is characterized by role change, the working of different emotions and information-processes. It seems very useful in this proces to give attention to Tyhurst's time-perspective phenomenon: the alternation in the direction of cognitive attention to the present and the immediate past. At the end of the end of the transitional proces the scope of the attention has widened to the continuum of the past and future. The employment of these aspects of transition theory is illustrated by describing the build-up of the programma of three different support-groups.