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Informationen zum Autor Daniel J. Levinson Klappentext "A HIGHLY NUANCED PORTRAIT, in every shade of gray, of individual women negotiating the transitions of what Levinson calls early adulthood *ages 18 to 45." *The New York Times Book Review Nearly twenty years ago, esteemed Yale psychologist Daniel J. Levinson wrote the groundbreaking classic, The Seasons of a Man's Life, which became the stimulus for a revolution in thinking about life passages, helping thousands of men make sense of their own lives. Now it is womens' turn. Based on exhaustive interviews with a diverse group of forty-five women, The Seasons of a Woman's Life completes and substantiates Levinson's thesis: that all human beings go right on developing throughout their lives in a pattern of amazing inevitability. Firmly grounded in original scientific research, The Seasons of a Woman's Life is unusual in being not only vividly readable but a rich source of insights and consolation. It speaks with uncanny directness to the dreams, emotional crises, inexplicable feelings, social conflicts, and psychological upheavals that mark each woman's life course. Every woman will recognize *and find comfort in recognizing *the deep shape of her own life in the pattern it outlines, from Early Adult Transition (ages 17 to 22) to the Mid-life Transition (ages 40 to 45) and beyond. Alive with the voices of real women, perceptive and sympathetic, this book is destined *like its predecessor *to become a classic. "AFFIRMING AND ILLUMINATING . . . PSYCHOLOGICALLY RICH." *San Jose Mercury News "HELPFUL AND ENLIGHTENING." *Booklist "GROUNDBREAKING." *Feminist Bookstore News1 The Study of Women’s Lives How do women’s lives evolve in adulthood? This question, seemingly so simple and straightforward, has rarely been asked in psychology or the other human sciences. Very little research has been done on the life course of the individual human being, female or male, in psychology, psychiatry, biology, the social sciences, and the humanities. Indeed, “life course” is one of the most important yet least examined terms in these fields. It refers to the evolution of an individual life from beginning to end. The key words are “evolution” and “life.” The word “evolution” indicates sequence, temporal flow, the unfolding of a life—be it an individual, a society, an organization, or any other open system—over the years. The evolution of a life involves stability and change, continuity and discontinuity, orderly progression as well as stasis, regression, chaotic flux. It is not enough to focus solely on a single moment or chapter in the life, nor to study the same individuals at intervals of several years as in standard longitudinal research, assuming simple continuity in the intervening periods. Rather, we must examine “lives in progress” (the felicitous phrase is Robert White’s) and follow the temporal sequence closely and continuously over a span of years. The word “life” is also of crucial importance. A life is, above all, about the engagement of a person in the world. To study an individual life we must include all aspects of living. A life involves significant interpersonal relationships—with friends and lovers, parents and siblings, spouses and children, bosses, colleagues, and mentors. It also involves significant relationships with groups and institutions of all kinds: family, occupational world, religion, community. When we study any of these significant relationships, we must consider the nature of the social context in which it occurs, what goes on in the relationship at a relatively overt, behavioral level, and the subjective wishes and meanings that shape the person’s involvement in it. We must include as well the bodily aspects of life—genetic endowment, biological development, health and illness, bodily fitness and impairme...
