In this bestselling textbook, contributors describe theories of normal human development advanced by such pioneers as Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Jean Piaget, Nancy Chodorow, Daniel Levinson, Erik Erikson, and Margaret Mahler. Beginning with infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool, each chapter examines corresponding ideologies concerning maturation and development in middle childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, while acknowledging that no one theory can encompass all aspects of human development. In-depth analyses of the psychology and sociology of development provide educators and practitioners with insights into the specific social contexts of human behavior and help identify variables and deviations. This second edition features up-to-date empirical information, including additional studies on diverse populations, and a new chapter on attachment theory, a growing area of interest for today's clinicians.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 3 reviews)

Grand place to start for a gestaltic understanding of key concepts

Big bang for the bucks...The hours spent reading this book are well spent for undergrad and graduate students. It may be particularly useful for those who consider the world "a laboratory of living". It works for students of many disciplines while not becoming a compromise volume that leaves all a bit short.

I wish that that the book "Developmental Theories Through the Life Cycle" had been available 30 years ago...it would have made my undergraduate psych courses more valuable, would have improved my parenting experience/style and would have likely positively altered my perceptions of my world increasing my enjoyment and effectiveness in interactions with family of origin and peers. Not many books can change lives through better understanding...this is clearly one of those books.

This text is unbiased, inclusive of most major contemporary and historical developmental concepts, and rewards the reader with a high return through the sense they receive for that investment of time and money...I have read it a couple of times over two years and refer to sections of it frequently.
January 19, 2007

Packed with information for students of the mind and personality

Easy enough to read & excellent for the student of psychology or social work. A thorough look at newer theories that traverse the life cycle, as opposed to other commonly used theorists.
April 05, 2006

Excuse Me, Would an Editor Please Come to the Phone?

This is a general introduction to developmental theory utilizing an essay format. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have been an editor involved. I'll list the problems: 1) incorrect proper names--repeatedly--one example, it's Harry Stack Sullivan, not Stark, that one is throughout the text, which gave me the uneasy feeling that they really didn't know this primary personage's correct name, rather then made a typo error; 2) numerous misspellings, typos, misspacings, or incorrect punctuation; 3) passages are so poorly written, (or edited, i can't really tell), that they don't make sense, in narrative flow as well as content; 4) quotes from primary texts are made without context or relatedness, and finally 5) fundamental theory is presented so casually it's superficial. At best it's a 'briefing' text to remind one of some basic constructs (which one should have, more substantially, in other texts) but not for study, and certainly not for use as a graduate level text in social work or psychology on developmental theory.
January 06, 2006

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