In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life [Paperback]

Robert Kegan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674445880 | ISBN-13: 978-0674445888 | Publication Date: July 21, 1998

If contemporary culture were a school, with all the tasks and expectations meted out by modern life as its curriculum, would anyone graduate? In the spirit of a sympathetic teacher, Robert Kegan guides us through this tricky curriculum, assessing the fit between its complex demands and our mental capacities, and showing what happens when we find ourselves, as we so often do, in over our heads. In this dazzling intellectual tour, he completely reintroduces us to the psychological landscape of our private and public lives.

A decade ago in The Evolving Self, Kegan presented a dynamic view of the development of human consciousness. Here he applies this widely acclaimed theory to the mental complexity of adulthood. As parents and partners, employees and bosses, citizens and leaders, we constantly confront a bewildering array of expectations, prescriptions, claims, and demands, as well as an equally confusing assortment of expert opinions that tell us what each of these roles entails. Surveying the disparate expert "literatures," which normally take no account of each other, Kegan brings them together to reveal, for the first time, what these many demands have in common. Our frequent frustration in trying to meet these complex and often conflicting claims results, he shows us, from a mismatch between the way we ordinarily know the world and the way we are unwittingly expected to understand it.

In Over Our Heads provides us entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies-the "abstinence vs. safe sex" debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism. What emerges in these pages is a theory of evolving ways of knowing that allows us to view adult development much as we view child development, as an open-ended process born of the dynamic interaction of cultural demands and emerging mental capabilities. If our culture is to be a good "school," as Kegan suggests, it must offer, along with a challenging curriculum, the guidance and support that we clearly need to master this course-a need that this lucid and richly argued book begins to meet.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A stimulating tour through the modern mind in society...In Over Our Heads is full of insight; it reflects broad learning and enormous intellectual effort.
--David Mehegan (Boston Sunday Globe )

[This book] is intellectually exciting and far-reaching in its implications...Kegan's writing has much to offer developmental psychology, which suffers from a dearth of theoretical frameworks in the area of adult development...This book invites readers to work hard but rewards them greatly. There are foundation-shaking theoretical and research challenges here for mainstream psychology, especially behavioral and social learning approaches that focus on skill training and cumulative (quantitative) change...I thoroughly recommend this exciting book...It has the potential to transform our texts on life span development. It is a book that opens up whole new vistas for developmental researchers, as well as psychologists whose practice includes adult clients.
--Marie R. Joyce (Contemporary Psychology )

A dazzling intellectual tour...In Over Our Heads provides us with entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies--the "abstinence vs. safe sex" debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism. (Health and Recovery )

About the Author

Robert Kegan is the William and Miriam Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (July 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674445880
• ISBN-13: 978-0674445888
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Incredible Book, August 1, 2001

By 

disco75 "disco75" (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Paperback)

This tour-de-force does much to explain how people's interactions are affected by their developmental stage and goes a long way toward fleshing out adult developmental theories. It hypothesizes that mental development is intricately entwined with world view and one's understanding of events and roles. It explains relations between romantic partners, family members, communities, and cultures. Kegan's hypotheses are informed, but not limited, by existing psychological frameworks. He is like a sociologist in his outlook and a psychologist in his theorizing. He writes about sophisticated ideas and complex topics in a clear and approachable way. His conception of mental development is not easy to grasp in its entirety but pondering it is well worth the effort. The book is one of the best written in the last 20 years in any field.

77 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Do You Think?, January 1, 2004

By 

Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Paperback)

I was amazed by this book. I was reading it when we left for a two-day driving trip. Even though I am unable to read in a moving car, I kept it near at hand to read whenever we stopped at a rest area or gas station. It was so compelling that when I finished it, I immediately tossed it back near the top of my to-read pile. The second time through, I found that it had just as much to offer (if not more) as it had the first time.

Every once in awhile, I run across a book that helps me reorganize the way I think about the world. This is such a book. Through the use of examples and detailed examination of various aspects of modern life, Kegan considers what kinds of demands the world puts on us for thinking and relating. He makes a very solid case that cognitive development does not end after one passes through the developmental stages of childhood and adolescence (magical, concrete and abstract).

By carefully considering what it is exactly that we ask adolescents to do in making the transition from concrete to abstract cognition, Kegan sets the groundwork for a careful explantion of what the next order of thought is, what it looks like, and how the modern world demands that we master it. he looks in detail at just what we ask from adults in the areas of parenting, partnering, work, dealing with differnce, healing and learning. In each case, he shows that the modern world is set up so that people thrive best if they can use what he calls a fourth-order way of relating to the world, other people, and oneself.

This book helped me understand observations that had puzzled me, and suggests ways in which adult education theories (which generally drive me crazy) need to be expanded to explain what really happens when adults come together to learn.

One very interesting thing about this book is that Kegan is able to report on research studies that support his theory. Probably the most important thing this book does is to provide a framework for considering people in the context of how they individually construct the world and their relationship to it, which allows me to judge whether a person is authentic, courageuos or generous on his own terms, not on mine.

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Insight Into Modern Life, November 9, 2002

By 

Keith A. Price "Keith Price" (Narrabundah, ACT Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Paperback)

So often we struggle in a confusing and demanding world. Kegan shows us why - the bar has been raised so much so quickly that many of us are left behind. Usually we blame ourselves for being stupid, unmotivated, lazy or whatever. If, however, we realise that the level of awareness and self-motivation expected of us is so much greater than anything most of our parents were required to exhibit - and Kegan makes this case very convincingly - we can start to get a handle on it for ourselves and help others much more effectively. A very important and impressive book.