Having made these adjustments, the man enters the period of Set -
tling Down, in which he begins to take life seriously and sets foot on the
ladder of success towards his Dream, the ambition he harbors deepdown. He is likely in this period to come under the protection, guid -
ance, or sponsorship of a mentor, a somewhat older man whom he ad -
mires and who encourages him in his Dream. His wife, also, must do
her part to encourage him if he is to be successful. The mentor, whoacts somewhat like an older brother, helps the man go from junior adultto senior, but in the latter years of the 30s Becoming One’s Own Man be -
comes crucial, and achievement of occupational aspirations is often ac -
companied by alienation of the mentor.
Just when life seems to have peaked (at least for those who made it
up the ladder), the Midlife Transition is entered and everything has tobe reevaluated. If men have been successful in striving for their goals,they question whether the goals were meaningful. If they have not beensuccessful, they must reconcile themselves to their failures. In addition,Levinson says, a number of other issues that emerge here must also bedealt with. Men must face the fact that they are getting older, a realiza-tion brought about by the beginnings of physical decline and perhapsby the death or disability of their parents. They must also resolve con-flicts about masculinity–femininity , creation–destruction, and attach-ment–separation. In some men these conflicts are expressed as con-scious introspection and philosophizing or in artistic creations; in mostthe conflicts are recognizable only as a sense of turmoil, stagnation,alienation, and confusion.
After age 45 the individual enters the Midlife period with a new ba -
sis for living and interpreting life. In the best of cases, concern over per -
sonal advancement and proving one’s worth has been replaced by a
more altruistic concern for the welfare of others and posterity (Erikson’sgenerativity ); and the single-mindedness of the 30s is replaced by a new
perspective in which previously neglected aspects of the self are givenexpression.
Although he had not yet made a systematic study of men over age
50, Levinson assumed that similar stages will continue throughout life.The process of life review (Butler, 1963), once thought to be a character -
istic of old age, may in fact simply be the last in a series of life reviews,
undertaken at each transition point throughout life.
Levinson’s theory , as he promised, is directly concerned with the
life structure and only secondarily with personality . Yet there are twoThe Personal Interview 171