You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This book is like a breath of fresh air. With a thorough knowledge of psychodynamics and a keen sense of reality, Axelrod has his feet firmly planted in the actualities of the part of our lives that consumes most of our time and energies, namely, our work life. The book so directly addresses issues we wrestle with daily in our offices and is such a natural that the perturbing question floats into our mind: “Why wasn't this book or a book like this written years and years ago?” The answer to this would be a fascinating essay on the searchlight quality of psychoanalysis, which brilliantly illuminates many areas but leaves others in darkness. But this is not the author's interest; he just wishes to illuminate the area we have failed to investigate wholeheartedly. He does challenge our past notions of adult development and believes in an adult developmental perspective based on the fact that experiences in adulthood are not reducible to factors in childhood, even if the latter have a decisive effect on personality formation. He states, “Experiences in adulthood have their own imperatives that offer their own opportunities for personal growth.”