Mechanisms inherent in the thermoluminescence (TL) processes are re-investigated with an aim to establish a generalized approach. It has been observed that the extents of recombination and simultaneous retrapping decide the order of kinetics involved. First order kinetics has been found to be a recombination dominant process with negligible or no retrapping. Probabilities of recombination and retrapping are found to be equal in second order kinetics. With the increasing order of kinetics, the extent of recombination decreases alongwith a simultaneous increase in the retrapping. A generalized equation has been developed which is found to be capable of representing the intensities of TL glow curves of different orders of kinetics including that of the first order. It has been found that irrespective of the order of kinetics involved, TL intensity decays exponentially.