Following on from my post last week (A wish for 2020!) I want to explore a little further the framework that Kegan describes for how we develop. He defines three stages from the adults’ perspective (the words in italics are Kegan’s labels for each stage):
Connecting to the child so that the child feels safe and cared for (Holding on)
Over the break I have been re-reading The Evolving Self by Robert Kegan, published in 1982. I was struck by how the issue of being paid attention to was identified (38 years ago!) as being “the most powerful determinant of future thriving.” Here is how Kegan describes it:
“The capacity to recruit another’s invested regard, so uniform at birth, becomes a various affair as people grow older: some people have a much greater ability to recruit people’s attention to them than other people do. This obvious fact, so under investigated by psychologists and so commonly denied by teachers, is never forgotten by teenagers …
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