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Review
--David Mehegan (Boston Sunday Globe )
[This book] is intellectually exciting and far-reaching in its implications...Kegan's writing has much to offer developmental psychology, which suffers from a dearth of theoretical frameworks in the area of adult development...This book invites readers to work hard but rewards them greatly. There are foundation-shaking theoretical and research challenges here for mainstream psychology, especially behavioral and social learning approaches that focus on skill training and cumulative (quantitative) change...I thoroughly recommend this exciting book...It has the potential to transform our texts on life span development. It is a book that opens up whole new vistas for developmental researchers, as well as psychologists whose practice includes adult clients.
--Marie R. Joyce (Contemporary Psychology )
A dazzling intellectual tour...In Over Our Heads provides us with entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies--the "abstinence vs. safe sex" debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism. (Health and Recovery )
Product Description
If contemporary culture were a school, with all the tasks and expectations meted out by modern life as its curriculum, would anyone graduate? In the spirit of a sympathetic teacher, Robert Kegan guides us through this tricky curriculum, assessing the fit between its complex demands and our mental capacities, and showing what happens when we find ourselves, as we so often do, in over our heads. In this dazzling intellectual tour, he completely reintroduces us to the psychological landscape of our private and public lives.
A decade ago in The Evolving Self, Kegan presented a dynamic view of the development of human consciousness. Here he applies this widely acclaimed theory to the mental complexity of adulthood. As parents and partners, employees and bosses, citizens and leaders, we constantly confront a bewildering array of expectations, prescriptions, claims, and demands, as well as an equally confusing assortment of expert opinions that tell us what each of these roles entails. Surveying the disparate expert "literatures," which normally take no account of each other, Kegan brings them together to reveal, for the first time, what these many demands have in common. Our frequent frustration in trying to meet these complex and often conflicting claims results, he shows us, from a mismatch between the way we ordinarily know the world and the way we are unwittingly expected to understand it.
In Over Our Heads provides us entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies-the "abstinence vs. safe sex" debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism. What emerges in these pages is a theory of evolving ways of knowing that allows us to view adult development much as we view child development, as an open-ended process born of the dynamic interaction of cultural demands and emerging mental capabilities. If our culture is to be a good "school," as Kegan suggests, it must offer, along with a challenging curriculum, the guidance and support that we clearly need to master this course-a need that this lucid and richly argued book begins to meet.
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspirational and Informative,
By
This review is from: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Paperback)
Robert Kegan is brilliant. His book has opened up new realms that I wouldn't have been able to invision with the traditional Piagetian and Kohlberg theories. However, his writing style is highly complex, but it is this complexity that adds such bliss to his theory. This book is a must for students and professionals alike! 1
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An enthusiastic thumbs up!,
By A Customer
This review is from: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Paperback)
By using various theories and examples, this book explains the parallels between the evolution of consciousness and the development of human consciousness in a lifetime. It is an exciting book that places our problems and developmental steps in the context of the evolution of our mind and how the two are related to each other as well as how we can become fragmented when the two are out of sync with each other. It is an excellent book that allows us to make sense of our present state and also take a glimpse into the future of our evolution. If you like books like this on consciousness, I would highly recommend "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is an absolutely fascinating book that explains these things in a simple (perhaps Zenlike) way that everybody can grasp. Two thumbs up both Kegan and Sato!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Incredible Book,
By disco75 "disco75" (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Paperback)
This tour-de-force does much to explain how people's interactions are affected by their developmental stage and goes a long way toward fleshing out adult developmental theories. It hypothesizes that mental development is intricately entwined with world view and one's understanding of events and roles. It explains relations between romantic partners, family members, communities, and cultures. Kegan's hypotheses are informed, but not limited, by existing psychological frameworks. He is like a sociologist in his outlook and a psychologist in his theorizing. He writes about sophisticated ideas and complex topics in a clear and approachable way. His conception of mental development is not easy to grasp in its entirety but pondering it is well worth the effort. The book is one of the best written in the last 20 years in any field.
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