The Evolution of Self
“In his book The Evolving Self (1982), Kegan explores human life problems from the perspective of a single process which he calls meaning-making,* the activity of making sense of experience through discovering and resolving problems. "Thus it is not that a person makes meaning, as much as that activity of being a person is the activity of meaning-making," Kegan says.* Meaning-making is a lifelong activity that begins in earliest infancy and can evolve in complexity through a series of "evolutionary truces" (or "evolutionary balances") that establish a balance between self and other (in psychological terms),* or subject and object (in philosophical terms),* or organism and environment (in biological terms).** Each evolutionary truce is both an achievement of and a constraint on meaning-making, possessing both strengths and limitations.* And each evolutionary truce presents a new solution to the lifelong tension between how people are connected, attached, and included, on the one hand (integration), and how people are distinct, independent, and autonomous on the other (differentiation).”
Robert Kegan: The Evolution of the Self
