
For example, in 1968, Erik Erikson published Identity, Youth and Crisis, a study that offered a theory of human development that identified the eight stages of ego development through which a person evolved from birth to death. Following Erikson, Gail Sheehy ( Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life), George Vailant ( Adaptation to Life), David Levinson ( The Seasons of Life), Roger Gould ( Transformations: Growth and Change in Adult Life), and Bernice Neugarten ( Life Span and Human Aging) all developed their own theories and published their own longitudinal studies about the predictable age- and issue-related stages of growth that they thought characterized the adult lifespan. Kegan's ideas have blossomed into a new, unique way of understanding, investigating, and supporting adult development.īefore Kegan, academicians and clinicians were primarily interested in investigating adult development from a point of view that emphasized age-related issues, problems, and patterns that evolved predictably over the course of an adult's lifetime.


While many found The Evolving Self to be a difficult book, it nonetheless launched a revolution in the way we think about adult development. In 1982, Robert Kegan published The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development.
