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Ever wondered what it means to be an adult?

I’m not talking about buying guest towels or renters insurance. I’m talking about how we ought to be developing in adulthood. How should we perceive and engage with the world? Or handle conflict and interact with the people around us?

With children it’s easy. Children have distinct developmental stages and rituals (terrible twos, bar mitzvah, sweet sixteen), so we pretty much know what to expect when they grow older.

But what about adults? For most of us, adulthood just happens. We don’t have a framework for adult development that can help us understand where we are and where we want to be.

This is where Dr. Robert Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development comes in.

Kegan (a former Harvard psychologist) shows that adults go through 5 distinct developmental stages (just like children).

Becoming an ‘adult’ means transitioning to higher stages of development. It means developing an independent sense of self and gaining the traits associated with wisdom and social maturity. It means becoming more self-aware and in control of our behavior, as well as increasingly aware of, and better able to manage our relationships and the social factors affecting us.

However, most of us — about 65% of the general population — never become high functioning ‘adults’, i.e. we never make it past Stage 3 (out of 5 Stages!). We still lack an independent sense of self because so much of what we think, believe, and feel is dependent on how we think others experience us.

So how can we transition to higher stages?

This article will review Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development. Part 1 will outline Kegan’s Stages 2–5 because being aware of the different Stages can help us better understand ourselves and the people around us (friends, partners, children, etc.) and gives us something to aspire to. I encourage you to read each stage carefully and think about which stage you’re in, and where you’d like to be.

Part 2 focuses on how to transition to stages 3 and 4 and Part 3 shares how to transition to stage 5.

How do we grow? Transformation & the Subject-Object Shift

Kegan’s theory outlines 5 distinct stages of development (Stages 1 -5). Most of us are in transition between stages.

Before we go into the theory, we need to understand 2 key concepts:

Transformation

Many of us think that being an adult simply means getting better at what we do (i.e. acquiring more skills and knowledge). Kegan would disagree.

According to Kegan, becoming an adult isn’t about learning new things (adding things to the ‘container’ of the mind), it’s about transformation — changing the way we know and understand the world (changing the actual form of our ‘container’).

Transformation is akin to a “personal Copernican shift”. Prior to Copernicus we thought the earth was the center of the solar system. Then Copernicus came along and showed that the sun is at the center. So while nothing physically changed, our entire conception and perception of the world was transformed.

This happens to us all the time. Think, for example, of a book you reread from high school. While the information is the same (same words, same book), the way you experience and understand the book (and the world!) is fundamentally different. This is transformation.

It’s only through transformation that we can transition to higher stages of development (this is also why personal tragedy can be such a catalyst for growth).

Subject -Object Shift

Transitioning to higher stages requires a subject-object shift — moving what we ‘know’ from Subject (where it is controlling us) to Object (where we can control it).

This is my favorite part of the theory. It’s based on the premise that the more in of our lives we take as Object, the more clearly we can see the world, ourselves and the people in it.

Subject (“I AM”) — Self concepts we are attached to and thus cannot reflect on or take an objective look at. They include personality traits, assumptions about the way the world works, behaviors, emotions, etc.

— Self concepts we are attached to and thus cannot reflect on or take an objective look at. They include personality traits, assumptions about the way the world works, behaviors, emotions, etc. Object (“I HAVE”) — Self concepts that we can detach ourselves from. That we can look at, reflect upon, engage, control and connect to something else.

For example: Many of us experience a subject-object shift with regards to religion. When we’re young our religion is subjective — i.e. I’m Catholic, I’m Jewish — and dependent on our parents or community. We don’t have the capacity to analyze or question these beliefs.

When we’re older, religion becomes more objective — i.e. I’m no longer my beliefs. I am now a human WITH beliefs who can step back, reflect on and decide what to believe in.

From my experience, the more I can step back and analyze, reflect on my own behavior, feelings, desires and needs, the more I can operate from a place of wholeness, peace and strength.

This is also very similar to Buddhist ideas around detachment. Suffering arises from over-identifying with our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc. The solution? Detachment. Detachment is not indifference, it is the act of viewing these things objectively, i.e. I am not my feelings, emotions, past or beliefs, I have .feelings, beliefs, emotions, etc.

Transformation and the subject-object shift are critical for adult development.