Book of the Week: The Season’s of a Man’s life

It seems to me that the basic facts of the psyche undergo a very marked alteration in the course of life, so much so that we could almost speak of a psychology of life’s morning and a psychology of its afternoon. As a rule, the life of a young person is characterized by  a general expansion and a striving towards concrete ends; and his neurosis seems mainly to rest on his hesitation or shrinking back from this necessity. But the life of an older person is characterized by a contraction of forces, by the affirmation of what has been achieved, and by the curtailment of further growth.

C.G. Jung CW 16, ¶75.

When The Seasons of a Man’s Life was first published in 1978, it was a best seller and considered groundbreaking. As a young man at the time, it was very helpful in understand that one was bound to go through a different stage of life, every five to seven years: what works for one stage of life does not work for another.

The book, with such a title, was based on the lives of men, and also did not well considered women, economic differences. Gail Sheehy’s Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life” was published shortly before Levinson’s, and was also a best seller and more inclusive.

from Goodreads:

The first full report from the team that discovered the patterns of adult development, this breakthrough study ranks in significance with the original works of Kinsey and Erikson, exploring and explaining the specific periods of personal development through which all human begins must pass–and which together form a common pattern underlying all human lives.

“A pioneering and radical theory of adult development.”
CHICAGO TRIBUNE