Personality Development

"Jane Loevinger's gift to our field is a theory about personality growth and development and method and measure for studying it. The diverse company of scholars brought together in Personality Development add to her gift by providing thoughtful, provocative contexts for understanding ego development as a theory, a process, and a measure. Westenberg, Blasi, and Cohn have skillfully organized the book around large questions that matter--(What is ego development? Is the measure valid? How is it related to other developments? What are its clinical uses?) and have brought together an outstanding set of essays, addressing these questions. Broad in scope and coverage, rich in quantitative, qualitative, and clinical evidence, this collection will remind every serious student of personality development that Loevinger's gift is one to cherish."
-Abigail Stewart
University of Michigan

"This volume well demonstrates the generativity of Loevinger's conceptualization of ego development. Her modestly expressed but deep formulations, first offered three decades ago, have come to be recognized as having implication for many approaches to the study of persons: attachment theory, identity evolvement, psychoanalytic theory, pubertal development, ethical achievement, interpersonal styles, and psychotherapy, among others. Her central theme, variously expressed in these chapters, is that a fuller understanding of personality development requires going beyond sole concern with a superficial notion of 'adjustment' and requires instead focus on how individuals make meaning of their lives."
-Jack Block
University of California, Berkeley

"In the field of personality development, there has been a recent and welcome renewal of interest in theory-building, and this splendid book moves that effort forward by several steps. Starting from the foundation of Jane Loevinger's ego development model, the chapters explore essential and timely topics such as identity formation, subject-subject relations, and the definition of mental health. If anyone has doubts about the potential of Loevinger's model to speak to the core issues of personality growth throughout the lifespan, this definitive treatment will put them forever to rest. The book is an impressive scholarly achievement, valuable both for preserving the insights of a landmark developmental theory and for the original new contributions that it makes to the study of lives."
-William Damon
Stanford University