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Drs. Colarusso and Nemiroff have attempted to collate their understanding of the works of past and current theorists on adult development and present it to a wide audience comprising both professionals and intelligent laymen.
In an opening chapter, the authors carefully lay out the basic tenets of their work. They emphasize that adult developmental processes continue throughout one's life span. Furthermore, they point out, although childhood developmental themes continue to play a central role in the adult, too little attention has been paid to the effects of adult experience on mental development.
The first part of the book is devoted to a review of theories of adulthood and evaluation in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers, Confucius, Japanese spiritualism and Christianity, followed by an outline of the writings of pioneer "developmentalists" such as the anthropologist A. Van Gennep, Freud, Jung, and Erikson whose delineations of the eight stages of life seems to be highly influential in the authors' writings. Their rather superficial reviews go on to outline the work of recent theorists such as D. J. Levinson, G. Vaillant, R. Gould, and B. Neugarten, and finally some of the more important relevant works of George Pollock, who suggests that the mourning process leads to new forms of creativity in older individuals.
The second part of the book is concerned with a systematic development of the authors' own concepts. Here the authors begin to falter with a reductionistic viewpoint they initially purport to avoid. For example, they present a group of sweeping generalizations such as: (1) the nature of the developmental process is basically the same in the adult as in the child; (2) the adult is just as dependent on his environment as is the child; (3) the fundamental developmental issues of childhood continue as central aspects of adult life; (4) development in adulthood is deeply influenced by physical change. However, they fail to present sufficient case