Word: levinson
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...research so far has been narrow, concentrating largely on white, middleclass American males. But in "separate studies, three of the most important life-cycle scholars-Psychiatrist Roger Gould of U.C.L.A., Yale Psychologist Daniel Levinson and Harvard Psychiatrist George Vaillant-have reached some remarkably similar conclusions that add new dimensions to the topography of postadolescent life. The main features...
...REACHING OUT. Following Erik Erikson, who found the dominant feature of the 20s to be a search for personal identity and an ability to develop intimacy, Gould, Levinson and Vaillant see this period as an age of reaching toward others. The growing adult is expansive, devoted to mastering the world; he avoids emotional extremes, rarely bothers to analyze commitments. To Levinson, this is a time for "togetherness" in marriage. It is also a time when a man is likely to acquire a mentor-a patron and supporter some eight to 15 years older...
...expect me to be?" An active social life tends to decline during this period. So does marital satisfaction, and the spouse is often viewed as an obstacle instead of an asset. Marriage becomes particularly vulnerable to infidelity and divorce. Vaillant sees a crassness, callowness and materialism at this stage. Levinson detects a wrenching struggle among incompatible drives: for order and stability, for freedom from all restraints, for upward mobility at work...
...running out. The researchers see this stage as an unstable, explosive time resembling a second adolescence. All values are open to question, and the mid-lifer wonders, is there time to change? The mentor acquired in the mid-20s is cast aside, and the emphasis is on what Levinson calls BOOM-becoming one's own man. Parents are blamed for unresolved personality problems. There is "one last chance to make it big" in one's career. Does all this add up to disaster? Not necessarily. "Midlife crisis does not appear to portend decay," says Vaillant. "It often heralds...
...Stable time: the die is cast, decisions must be lived with, and life settles down. There is increasing attention to a few old values and a few friends. Money is less important. Gould sees married people turning to their spouses for sympathy as they once did to their parents. Levinson notes that men tend to have fantasies of young, erotic girls as well as of older, nurturing women-all part of a final attempt to solve childhood problems and cut free from the mother...