accept the feminine side of his nature and can acknowledge the individ -
uality of his wife; his judgment is improved, marked by realistic com -
passion rather than by idealism or egocentrism. The older man sees the
universal rather than the particular and is no longer bound by short -
sighted or parochial views. With the abatement of instinctual drives, the
older man can grow in rationality and ego strength. (Of course,Levinson would add, not every man succeeds in development: Some de -
spair; some die too young. And the goal is never finally reached: Late
life, like middle age, is marked by conflict, reassessment, and growth.)
On the other hand, in a discussion of this topic near the end of his
book, Levinson expressly denies that his scheme is hierarchical, thatlater stages are better than earlier. Each has its strengths and weak -
nesses. But whereas no one stage is intrinsically better than another, the
traversing of stages is itself the mark of growth. Individuals who do notchange—who experience no periods of crisis—are arrested in develop-ment; they are, as a leading theorist of adult development, Orville Brim,said, “stuck” (Rubin, 1981). This view , however appealing and human-istic it seems, has as yet no basis in evidence. Change per se is not nec-essarily good, nor is stability necessarily the same as stagnation.
Gould’s Transformations
If Levinson is fundamentally a Jungian theorist, Roger Gould is clearly aFreudian. He sees adult development as the dismantling of illusions ofsafety developed in childhood and maintained in a quasi-unconsciousfashion through the first half of adulthood. His ideas were also bor -
rowed by Gail Sheehy , and he too wrote a book, T ransformations (1978),
expounding his more fully formed theory .
Externally , there are both similarities and differences between
Gould’s and Levinson’s work. Gould divides adulthood into five peri -
ods: from 16 to 22, when the adolescent is breaking ties with parents;
from 22 to 28, when a new , adult life is started; from 28 to 34, when lifeis reassessed in view of conflicting internal needs and values; from 35 to45, when the problems of evil, death, and destruction are faced; andpostmidlife, when the individual is finally in control of his or her owndestiny . Whereas Levinson calls for alternating periods of stability andtransition, Gould sees a continually deepening—and progressively lib -
erating—struggle. Gould expects no further development after 50,
whereas Levinson does (note that neither of them studied individuals inThe Personal Interview 175