Both the self-development and liberation models regard the study of adult development as goal-oriented change over the lifespan that is not entirely determined ... The objection is not to universalizing human development. On the contrary .... (1970) self-actualizing people are defined in part as autonomous; relatively free of.
Transcending the Self: Toward a Liberative Model of Adult Development
Michael R. Levenson, Carolyn M. Aldwin, and Ana Paula Cupertino Dept. of Human & Community Development University of California at Davis
This chapter is to describe three schools of adult development, the ontogenetic, sociogenic, and liberative models, and to contrast them with the liberative model. The ontogenetic school generally takes the position that there are intrinsic, universal sequences of psychological change in adulthood (e.g., Erikson, 1950). These are often presented in terms of developmental tasks or crises, such as the dialectic between ego integrity and despair in late life. On the other hand, sociogenic theorists argue that the adult life course consists of the shaping of social role performances by sociohistorical forces (cf., Dannefer, 1984; Elder, 1998; Neugarten, 1984). Levenson and Crumpler (1996) presented a detailed critique of contemporary ontogenetic and sociogenic theories of adult development and offered an alternative they called the liberative model. In the liberative model, the goal of adult development is the relative freedom from the influences of both biological and sociological forces, and involves conscious, volitional change directed towards a goal. In many ways this is similar to a complementary model, termed "self-development" (cf., Brandst@dter & Lerner, 1999), which also addresses volitional development in the context of goals. However, there are important distinctions between the two models. Both the self-development and liberation models regard the study of adult development as goal-oriented change over the lifespan that is not entirely determined by biological maturation or decline or by environmental causes. They both specify that development is only partially deterministic, i.e., volition (Howard & Conway, 1986) must play a role. In the self-development model, the goal of development is to strengthen the self through increasing mastery, ego strength, ego integrity, and the like (Brantdstädter & Lerner, 1999; Brandstädter Wentura, & Rothermund, 1999). However, the goal of the
liberation model is self-transcendence, not the elaboration of the existing self. It is the cultivation of a way of acting and reacting that increases the capacity for the attainment of goals while decreasing attachment to any specific goal. In this model the self is not the ontological ground, and is instead is thought to be constructed of attachments and aversions which need to be transcended through non-attachment As Baltes. Reese, & Lipsitt (1980) remind us, all development consists of both gains and losses. The self-development model focuses on gains and mitigating losses. In rather than needing to compensate for losses, the liberation model argues that loss is an integral component of development -- and indeed, perhaps the most important one. In Buddhist psychology, loss or transcendence of the self is the most important goal of development The method of development is based upon self-observation, specifically the observation of those patterns of reactions that cause suffering. Those patterns of reaction constitute what we unreflectively think of as the self. In the Buddhist model, the self lies at the root of reactions such as greed (attachment), anger (aversion), and ignorance (self-deception). These basic patterns of reaction give rise to egocentrism, fear, arrogance, and aggression, to name a few of the more important impediments to development. It should be noted that the Eastern psychological traditions associated with Buddhism, Taoism, and yoga, for example, address this problem directly and radically, and as such form the basis for the liberative model (cf., Levine, 1999). So losses such as bereavement actually present opportunities for self-observation and self knowledge (Aldwin, 1994; Aldwin & Levenson, in press; Lieberman, 1996). This increased self-knowledge can form the basis for coping strategies that promote lead to decreases in
attachment, aversion, and self-deception. In this context, loss of self should not be confused with trauma-induced depersonalization, but rather refers to the transcending the ego through such practices as non-attachment, patience, and self-knowledge. Indeed, transcending the self is the first step towards the development of wisdom in liberation models. The past ten years has seen a blossoming of interest in the construct of wisdom (cf., Sternberg, 1990; McKee & Barber, 1999; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). The purpose of this chapter is to present a model of the development of wisdom in adulthood, that incorporates the notion of development through loss. First, however, we shall review and critique the two dominant models in adult development, ontogenetic and sociogenic models. We also briefly review current theories of self-development, and differentiate the liberative model from these three alternative views. Ontogenetic Schools. Ontogenetic models, typified by Erikson's stage theory, are rooted in a biological metaphor. Baltes et al. (1980) describe a model that defines developmental change as "qualitative, sequential, irreversible, end-state-oriented, and universal" – which is consistent with the biological metaphor. Dannefer (1984) argued that criticized ontogenetic theorists for their "practice of treating socially produced and patterned phenomena as rooted in the characteristics of the individual organism" (p. 847). However, Dannefer overemphasizes the biological metaphor in critiquing the ontogenetic approach. Certainly, in treating of adult development, ontogenetic theory is in no way rigorously biological. Indeed, the most prominent ontogeneticists, such as Loevinger (1977) and Kohlberg (1984) have been independently and explicitly opposed to a reliance on biology to account for all of human behavior. Levenson and Crumpler (1996) objected to the stage invariance implicit in the biological metaphor (and explicit in Erikson and Kohlberg).
The objection was largely to the implication
of a universal sequence of developmental change in adulthood. The universal sequences so far advanced for consideration have been culturally limited (Rossi, 1980). For example, Kohlberg's norm was a humanistic rationality typical of liberal members of the educated classes in Europe and North America. Erikson's (1950) and Vaillant's (1977) descriptions of normative adult development are restricted to the development of the ego, whereas relinquishment of the ego is central to the developmental aim of traditional developmental systems to be considered below. The objection is not to universalizing human development. On the contrary, the objection is to universalizing the culturally-limited. In other words, theories of adult development which are based upon ego processes are, by definition, culturally-limited as culture is large responsible for determining the content of the ego. In contrast, transcendence of the ego can promote transcendence of cultural limitations. Nonetheless, the last phase of presentations the ontogenetic model can be seen anticipating the liberation model. Ontogenetic theorists have more recently proposed higher developmental stages that are as yet poorly understood but that nonetheless transcended the preceding ones (e.g., Kohlberg & Ryncarz, 1990). As Vaillant (1993) correctly observed, Kohlberg and Loevinger view development as "increasing differentiation of self from others and a progressive freeing of self from contextual and social constraints" (p. 161). In Kohlberg and Ryncarz’s (1990) Stage 7, the self is no longer central, but rather gives way to the experience of the “unity of the whole” in contemplation (pp. 192-195). This is the point of departure for the liberation approach. The wisdom approach will go a step further toward a progressive freeing from self that reunites beings, not in chaos, but at a higher level of integration (cf., Wilber, 1999).
Sociogenic Models
Sociogenic models derive from the recognition that much of change in adulthood is organized around social roles. In young adulthood, one relinquishes childhood roles and takes on those of spouse, parent, and worker. Throughout adulthood, these roles are gradually relinquished, and new ones obtained. Being a wife may give way to being a widow; being a parent to being a grandparent; and being a worker to being a retiree. This argument rejects the notion of intrinsic adult development. Indeed, Neugarten (1984) argued that we should not speak of adult development at all but, instead, of change over the life course (see also Elder, 1998). However, this may over-emphasize the social determination of behavioral change. Ford and Lerner (1992) tried to combine ontogenetics and sociogenics in their model of developmental systems theory, which specifies a dynamic transaction between biological and sociological processes. But they also left open the door to nondeterminism by warning against environmental, as well as biological, determinism. Báhler (1968) and Loevinger (1977) argue that deterministic models of human development are more appropriate for children and adolescents than for adults. Liberation from biological and social determinants is more appropriate for adult development, and, according to Jung (1933), especially for adults entering middle age. Another criticism of sociogenic models is that, from a social psychological perspective, they are social learning theories rather than developmental theories per se. Naturally, the social learning approach can provide useful knowledge about what Kegan (1999) calls the socialized mind. The socialized mind is the internalization of the complex of social norms and practices that permits efficient functioning within one’s social order (see Garfinkel, 1967). However, from Kegan's perspective and our own quite different view, the socialized mind can easily obstruct adult development. Indeed,
adult development is the transcendence of the socialized self or, more correctly, the socially constructed self. It is precisely this self from which liberation is sought. Self-Development Models One way in which theorists have acknowledged both the role of social processes in development and the importance of volition is to cast development in terms of the achievement of goals. Báhler (1968) was one of the earliest developmental theorists to explicitly organize the life cycle in terms of goals. While acknowledging the importance of need-based motivation as one source of intention, she acknowledged that "there is a wide gap between the intents inherent in basic needs and the complex goals pursued by the mature mind in which the need aspect is partly replaced by one of values and beliefs" (p. 16). It is true that ontogenetic theories also refer to goals. However, in traditional ontogenetic theories, the stage determines the goals (e.g., Erikson, 1950). On the other hand, in self-development models the goals determine the stage (e.g., Maslow, 1970), as well as the process or strategies used to achieve those goals (Smith, 1999). Although using the motivational language of need, Maslow explicitly created a hierarchy of goals that clearly reflected successive developmental stages. Báhler (1968) presaged the current emphasis on self-development when she explicitly linked "intentionality" with self-determination. She defined intention as the pursuit of an objective that provides an individual with a sense of purpose in life. Brandst@dter (1999) identified five stages of this process. The intentional self develops in infancy, with the growing capacity to comprehend and enact response-contingency
outcomes, both in terms of the physical and the social environments. The conceptual self emerges around age three, when children begin to be able to evaluate their own behavior and begin to self-regulate. The self-monitoring self emerges in middle childhood, and involves self-observation, self-evaluation, and the self-correction of action. The self-actualizing self, however, requires the acquisition of formal operations in that it requires the ability to contrast hypothetical developmental courses. It also requires the integration of the intentional, symbolic, and self-monitoring functions in order to contrast individuals' ideal vs. actual selves, and to set into motion actions and strategies to achieve the ideal self. In this model, the ideal self is largely culturally determined, which is how it integrates sociocultural processes with intentionality. Finally, in late life, the self-maintaining self emerges, as a means of preserving resources and counteracting developmental losses. In criticizing somewhat simplistic notions of choice, Dannefer (1999, p. 105) states that "intentional human action. . . is largely hyperhabituated, unreflective, and routinized, and that it reproduces existing structures, both personal and social." He argues that matters of choice are always dialectical, and operate within a system of social constraints. These constraints may render "choice" somewhat illusory. Interestingly, these systems of constraints may operate at all levels of society. From a psychological point of view, however, the social environment may provide the context for action, but it is possible for individuals to detach from social constraints and develop autonomous action. Indeed, the primary focus of the liberative model is to describe the process by which individuals develop this capacity. Indeed, Báhler's (1968) work also presaged the liberative model by referring to "the human ability to detach
intents of value from need pressures" (p. 16). Liberative Model We define the liberative model in terms of the intentional reduction of conditioning, that is, the attainment of relative (obviously not absolute) freedom from biosocial determinism. This draws explicitly upon the developmental methods of older traditions of adult development, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Yoga and contemplative Christianity, to name the most influential. . Traditional approaches to adult development were embedded in religious contexts because these were the matrices of the entire premodern social order. If it appears strange to hear these described as approaches to adult development, this is because of the contemporary emphasis on religion as either a comforting belief system or as a source of political authority. However, Jung (1933) saw religions differently. He likened them to "schools for forty-year-olds." "Our religions were always such schools in the past, but how many people regard them as such today? How many of us older persons have really been brought up in such a school and prepared for the second half of life, for old age, death and eternity?" (p. 111) Freeing oneself from as much biosocial bondage as possible is also not completely foreign to the contemporary adult development literature. Indeed, there have been distinguished voices calling for such an approach for the last half-century at least. Loevinger (1977) observed that "How people liberate themselves from the dominion of external rewards and punishments is a central mystery of human development and one of the lures that leads us to our subject matter" (p. 28). Maslow's
(1970) self-actualizing people are defined in part as autonomous; relatively free of cultural and environmental determinism, and, therefore, more able to exercise free will and to make independent judgements. More recently, Peskin (1998), with deference to Kegan (1998), argued that "Adult development is not a holdover of belated youth, but a good-enough term ... that indicates the self-authoring and self-transforming potential of the adult to move beyond the socialized-mindedness of youth and adolescence...." (p. 298). From our perspective, advanced adult development is transcendence of ego. This is a process entered into intentionally, not to be confused with pathological depersonalization. For psychologists, this appears to be a paradox. If individuals are their egos, how can they transcend them? A Buddhist developmentalist would say that transcendence is grounded in an acute awareness of impermanence, a realization that one's ego is both a very transient event and an obstruction that must be removed in order to "see things as they really are." This may be easier to comprehend if we use the Jungian term Athe persona.@ The persona is a false self developed in adolescence and early adulthood to conform to adult social role conventions. As such, it is impermanent, in that it is a product of a specific context or social role, and thus can change across time and context. It reflects the assumptions about the way the world is gathered from other people in that context, and thus individuals may have multiple and contradictory assumption systems which do not allow them to Asee things as they really are.@ Thus, conditioned thinking and feeling obscure awareness. The word "conditioned" is used here in both the sense of being controlled by reward and
punishment contingencies and in its sense of reducing thinking to conditioned limitations, much as the perceived world might appear if one's vision were constantly obstructed by an object covering most of the visual field. Psychological liberation is not "liberation" from obligation to others. Indeed, a fading of ego seems likely to be associated with an increase in concern for others. Naturally, one who sees things as they really are would be better able to "do the right thing." The social psychological tradition in academic psychology explicitly seeks to explore processes of influence and self-deception that bias perception. For our present task, the study of the biasing effects of egocentrism are especially pertinent. Egocentric bias is itself based on the restricted perceptual range of the empirical ego. Each of us has some degree of consciousness of the influences that shape our actions. Usually, this consciousness is quite minimal both concerning the proximal influences upon daily choices (cf., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) and the larger social forces within which such choices are made (cf., Mills, 1959). Self-deception arises when we make judgements about the causes of our own behavior and that of others. We are likely to make more favorable attributions about our own behavior than that of others. Thus, if someone else fails a test, we may think that they were Astupid@ or Aill-prepared.@ However, if we fail a test, it is because we were ill that day or because the test was unfair. Attribution biases are due not only to errors of perspective but also to ego defenses such as denial and projection. Release from this egocentric bias would be an obvious case of developmental change as we envision it.
If we ask someone, "Who are you?" that person is likely to answer in rather simplistic terms. They may respond with their name, sex, nationality, place of birth, family ties, test scores, school attendance, grades, employment history, organizational membership, etc. The contemplative psychologies ask us to look beyond these and observe something much more basic about ourselves as subjects, not as objects. It asks us, as a matter of regular practice, to recognize that our selves are composed of habitual patterns of responding to our own mental constructs, and to Aput down@ or Abracket@ (in the terms of phenomenological psychology) ourselves. In the words of a famous Zen koan, what was your "original face before your father and mother were born?". This is the practice of development in contrast to the empirical study of development, yet consequences of such developmental practice for many aspects of adult functioning are just now beginning to be studied empirically.
The practice of development is not entirely uniform across all the contemplative psychologies. Yet there are striking similarities among them and all entail the cultivation of egolessness. Much recent developmental literature has stressed ego development and ego strength. The traditional schools would regard this emphasis as unwittingly perpetuating the Asmall mind@ of the socially conditioned self. The larger the ego, the smaller the mind, one might say. The more imperious the demands of the self, the farther it is from its true nature. Yet egolessness can be a very difficult construct for the Western mind to register. Natalie Goldberg, a noted American Zen teacher, recounts a story about a Japanese Zen master, Katagiri Roshi, who spoke a heavily-accented English. Speaking at a
meditation center near San Francisco, he said that AThe whole world depends on....@ and the rest of the sentence was unclear. AAfter his talk, there was a tea. Several old Zen students sitting together mused on what the word could be. A well-known businessman, who was also a Zen student, joined the group. >Oh, I know the word. It was obvious. Roshi was saying Aeconomic success@.= They found out later that Roshi was not saying Aeconomic success@ but Aegolessness.@ (Goldberg, 1994, vii-viii). The cultivation of egolessness is accomplished in several complementary practices. For example, the practice of generosity can be used to detach oneself from material possessions. The practice of patience is the antidote to anger and hostility, as is doing the humblest of chores without complaint. Patience, self-discipline, meditation, and commitment are also seen as necessary for the development of wisdom. Most traditions also encourage the avoidance of negative characteristics. Christian traditions called these negative characteristics the “seven deadly sins”: anger (hostility), pride (narcissism), sloth (lack of motivation) , gluttony (inability to delay gratification), covetousness, envy, and lust. Western religions emphasize the suppression of these traits, while Sufism speaks of transforming these into more positive modalities (Shah, 1964). However, all of these negative characteristics can ultimately be seen as stemming from selfishness or egocentricity: my thoughts, feelings, and desires are more important than anyone else=s. However, an easier way eliminating these may entail simply Alooking beyond@ these temporary states or
conditions and to recognize their impermanence and ultimate lack of significance.
Wisdom as Ego Transcendence Whatever adult development is, it is very obviously about the ego and its self and about change in one's way of being oneself. However, Western psychology and the contemplative psychologies emphasize different aspects of this development The academic approaches to development can be very broadly characterized as adding relations to create increasing complexity.
For example, ego development has
been convincingly defined as increasing emotional and cognitive complexity (LabouvieVief, 1990). In this model of adult development, the self becomes increasingly differentiated internally and more distinct from its surroundings. From a sociological point of view, this complexity mirrors socio-ecological phenomena such as population growth, technological development, economic differentiation, industrialization and the division of labor, and the pluralism of lifestyles and belief systems. The busy brain is responsive to a busy environment and makes that environment busier still in an ever busier spiral. Further, any loss of complexity or differentiation is regarded by conventional psychotherapists as Aregressive@ or a loss of ego function (cf., Kegan, 1998). From the viewpoint of the contemplative psychologies, however, captivity in complicated thinking and conflicting emotions is what the human being must transcend, in order to succeed in the developmental task of adult development. Rather than increasing complexity, development is seen as simplifying and clarifying. For example, contrast the complexity of rococo art with the simplicity of Zen paintings. In mathematics, it is also understood that highly complex phenomena can be reduced to simple but elegant equations, such as e=mc2.
McKee and Barber (1999), writing from the Platonic tradition, define wisdom as "seeing through illusion." Their definition is identical with that of the Buddhist prajnaparamita tradition (cf., Cleary, 1999). Indeed, all of the contemporary developmental theorists who acknowledge the possibility of higher levels of adult development could easily agree with this definition of wisdom. McKee and Barber provide examples of seeing through illusions at various periods in human development. Indeed, all development can be regarded as occurring in episodes of transcending illusion. Young children achieve conservation by transcending nonconservation. Adults can transcend the illusion of the self by experiencing the nonseparation of the ego from the fundamental ground of being. All of the contemplative schools use the analogy of waves on the ocean. The individual self is to the fundamental ground of being as is the wave to the ocean. Importantly, McKee and Barber (1999) have argued for a view of development that is not additive and multiplicative. "Seeing through illusion" is loss of illusion. From the perspective of the contemplative psychologies, illusion is complex, reality is simple. Development here emerges as a process of integration at a higher level that reveals radical simplicity in the midst of apparent complexity. With age, those persons who can accept loss and look beyond it to what loss uncovers, may be said to be on the same developmental path as contemplatives who cultivate loss intentionally. In an important paper, Tornstam (1994) has observed that aging can be associated with a meta-theoretical shift toward "a picture of the world that a Zen Buddhist would probably have" (p. 207). This picture involves far less rigid ego boundaries than might appear "normal." He argues that such "gero-transcendence"
provides an alternative to the positivist paradigm that constrains the vision of gerontologists. He notes that gerontologists, operating under the influence of positivist behaviorism, misinterpret the lack of interest of older persons in social busy-ness as a sign of pathological disengagement. He further points out that in modern Western cultures, there are no widely accepted roles for wise, gero-transcendent persons, while in some more traditional cultures, such roles do continue to exist. He provides data from survey research with a Danish sample that generally supported the hypothesis that, with increasing gero-transcendence, life satisfaction is increasingly less dependent on social activity, yet satisfaction with social activity also increased. Tornstam also found that gero-transcendence appears to serve as a buffer against decreasing life satisfaction due to the tribulations of aging, though more rigorous longitudinal study will be needed to confirm this. Gero-transcendence was also associated with increasing "offensive" (problem-focused) coping but was uncorrelated with depression. Tornstam distinguishes gero-transcendence from Erikson's (1950) ego-integrity. The latter is concerned with integrating one's life retrospectively. It can really only be achieved near life's end. Gero-transcendence involves a forward-looking redefinition of reality that treats one's development as a work still in progress. It is a new opening rather than a closing. From our viewpoint, the contemplative psychologies invite us to "fast forward" gero-transcendence to a younger age so that the opening process can proceed for as long as possible.
Contemporary theorists also generally perceive wisdom as a process of gain, whether in terms of practical experience (Baltes & Smith, 1990), cognitive and
emotional complexity (Labouvie-Vief, 1990), or higher levels of moral reasoning (Kohlberg & Ryncarz, 1990). However, attention is now turning to the idea that wisdom is a balance of characteristics. Birren and Fisher (1990, p. 326) define wisdom as the integration of affective, conative and cognitive aspects of human abilities in response to life=s tasks and problems. Wisdom is a balance between the opposing valences of intense emotion and detachment, action and inaction, and knowledge and doubts. Similarly, Sternberg (1998) also argued that wisdom is a balance between perspicacity, social justice, and emotional balance. Baltes and Staudinger (2000) have also recently expanded their theory of wisdom along similar lines. Thus, instead of simple additive qualities, wisdom is seen as a dialectical balance which allows for action in the service of the greater social good. However, as McKee and Barber (1999) have postulated, loss may also play an instrumental role in the development of wisdom. Baltes (1987) has characterized development in adulthood as a balance of gains and losses. However, the underlying assumption has been that development consists of gains that may or may not compensate for losses, with the corollary assumption that loss is bad. However, the liberative approach argues that loss is essential to the development of wisdom. Specifically, the loss of illusion, as well as the demands and confusion of the ego, is necessary for the perspicacity required for the correct application of practical experience. Decreasing the egocentricity of the ego also aids in compassionate action, and also supports the emotional balance thought to be essential to wisdom by both Sternberg (1998) and Baltes and Staudinger (2000). Summary
The liberative model of development is consistent with the thrust of the traditional developmental schools, and offers the opportunity to conceptualize adult development universally. This in no way overlooks the large differences in culture that greatly affect social behavior. However, we feel that there is a fair amount of consistency in the conceptualization of wisdom across cultures, especially in the contemplative psychologies. These traditions emphasize what must be lost as well as gained, and provide a description of means for the development of wisdom. The liberative model is an advance upon both the ontogenetic and the sociogenic models, because it specifies that one can take charge of one's own psychological destiny. The self-development model is also a step in that direction. In some ways, the liberative model is complementary to the self-development model, because it specifies what needs to be lost, while the latter focuses solely on what needs to be gained or preserved. The liberative model further specifies the means by which volition can be developed. Transcending the ego is a necessary step in the development of wisdom.
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