Elena Mustakova-Possardt
 

Course Description and Objectives

This course studies human growth and development from birth through aging and death, focusing on cognitive, social, personality and emotional development. It takes an epistemological, psychosocial, and spiritual approach to the vicissitudes of individual growth in socio-cultural and historical contexts. The course objectives are to cultivate in future counselors and helping professionals a deep working understanding of various theoretical angles on development, and an ability to utilize these angles in assisting people on their developmental journeys.
 

Primary Texts
Belenky, Mary, Clinchy, Blythe, Goldberger, Nancy & Tarule, Jill (1986). Women’s Ways of Knowing
Levinson, Daniel (1978). The Seasons of a Man’s Life
Kegan, Robert (1982). The Evolving Self
Reading package

Recommended Readings
Fowler, James (1981). Sages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning
Erikson, Erik (1963). Childhood and Society
Erikson, Erik (1980). Identity and the Life Cycle
Erikson, Erik (1982). The Life Cycle Completed
Wade, Jenny (1996). Changes ofMind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness.
Wertsch, J. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind
 

Evaluation
The grade for this course will be determined on the basis of the student’s total contribution to the emerging understanding of the themes of the course. Since the course will be very reading-and-discussion-intensive, doing the readings required for each class will be an important component, as well as preliminary thinking on the pre-assigned questions for discussion. Here will be a midterm exam, and a final paper, which will reflect the student’s original reflective synthesis of the themes of the course.
 

Course Schedule

Part I: The Development of Mind
1/9 - Course philosophy. Development approaches
 1/11 - The relationship of the social world and the individual (Rogoff)
1/16 - Vygotsky:integration of the natural and the socio-historical lines of development
l/18&23-Genetic epistemology (Rosen)
l/25&30 Cognitive development and social interaction. (Rosen, Hoffman Kohlberg)

Part II: Evolving Subject/Object Distinctions and the Experience of Developmental Motion
2/1-Decentration, reciprocity, meaning-making (Kegan, Prologue, ch. 1, 2)
2/6-Constitutions of the self (Kegan, ch. 3)
2/8-Incorporative and impulsive self (Kegan, ch. 4,5)
2/13-Imperial self (Kegan, ch. 6)
2/15- Interpersonal self (Kegan, ch. 7
2/20-Institutional and Interindividual self. (Kegan, ch. 8)
2/22-Therapeutic contexts and questions (Kegan, ch. 9) Perry and Belenky
2/27-Midterm

Part III: Ways of Knowing and Ways of Being
3/1- Epistemological development (Perry)
3/6-Silent and Received knowing (Belenky ch. 1, 2)
3/8-Subjective knowing. (Belenky ch.3, 4)
3/13-Procedural knowing. (Belenky, ch. 5,6)
3/15-Constructed knowing (Belenky, ch. 7)
3/27-Family life and the politics of talk (Belenky, ch. 8, 9, 10)

Part IV: Psychosocial Seasons and Adult Development
3/29& 4/3 - The life cycle epigenesis of identity (Erikson)
4/5 - Psychodynamic aspects of identity formation and gender (Marcia & Josselson)
4/10 - Levinson’s eras in the individual life structure (Levinson, ch. 1, 2, 3)
4/12-The novice phase: building the first adult life structure (Levinson, ch. 5, 6, 7, 8)
4/17- Building a second adult life structure (Levinson, ch. 9, 10, 11, 12)
4/19 - Mid-life transition (Levinson, ch. 13, 14, 15, 16, 20)
4/24 - The Seven Valleys
4/26 - Integration