Buy new:
$36.68
FREE delivery Saturday, May 18
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$36.68
FREE Returns
FREE delivery Saturday, May 18
Or fastest delivery Thursday, May 16. Order within 20 hrs 18 mins
Only 17 left in stock (more on the way).
$$36.68 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$36.68
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$12.71
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Tuesday, May 21 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Thursday, May 16. Order within 20 hrs 18 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$36.68 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$36.68
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Robert Kegan
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life Paperback – July 21, 1998

by Robert Kegan (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 95 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$36.68","priceAmount":36.68,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"36","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"68","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"x%2BZophyz62zGjOy76WGosw2lO6VSIf0ou0sRJd16rKNnOChqtbV%2FQeIVmZUnN8sNJXzFi6KlZBcYfQBw%2FDGb1DFOrihvrlodCr8mJsRrAm4V%2B2%2BAufxzU5ZVaVG7l52pyCCkAH0%2B5pY%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$12.71","priceAmount":12.71,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"12","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"71","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"x%2BZophyz62zGjOy76WGosw2lO6VSIf0oXIa5FrA0epN3kmx0VZuxZBlaYs9DDUNSmgHmO7eusd66IwdZ6StdLbplmIHnqGbSXYtcCem3Lnx0i6yD4IJfgm5Z1UzkwM98PdpgiviOOEQff0Blw6lLUGX%2Ft0RpBDDTai4tLwCNvbdODtCC9C98lEbXXusvOiyR","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

If contemporary culture were a school, with all the tasks and expectations meted out by modern life as its curriculum, would anyone graduate? In the spirit of a sympathetic teacher, Robert Kegan guides us through this tricky curriculum, assessing the fit between its complex demands and our mental capacities, and showing what happens when we find ourselves, as we so often do, in over our heads. In this dazzling intellectual tour, he completely reintroduces us to the psychological landscape of our private and public lives.

A decade ago in The Evolving Self, Kegan presented a dynamic view of the development of human consciousness. Here he applies this widely acclaimed theory to the mental complexity of adulthood. As parents and partners, employees and bosses, citizens and leaders, we constantly confront a bewildering array of expectations, prescriptions, claims, and demands, as well as an equally confusing assortment of expert opinions that tell us what each of these roles entails. Surveying the disparate expert “literatures,” which normally take no account of each other, Kegan brings them together to reveal, for the first time, what these many demands have in common. Our frequent frustration in trying to meet these complex and often conflicting claims results, he shows us, from a mismatch between the way we ordinarily know the world and the way we are unwittingly expected to understand it.

In Over Our Heads provides us entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies―the “abstinence vs. safe sex” debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism. What emerges in these pages is a theory of evolving ways of knowing that allows us to view adult development much as we view child development, as an open-ended process born of the dynamic interaction of cultural demands and emerging mental capabilities. If our culture is to be a good “school,” as Kegan suggests, it must offer, along with a challenging curriculum, the guidance and support that we clearly need to master this course―a need that this lucid and richly argued book begins to meet.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    396 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    July 21, 1998
  5. Dimensions
    6.12 x 1.1 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674445880
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674445888
  8. See all details
Next page
Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Frequently bought together

In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life
$36.68
Get it as soon as Saturday, May 18
Only 17 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development
$33.92
Get it as soon as Saturday, May 18
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation
$12.69
Get it as soon as Saturday, May 18
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A stimulating tour through the modern mind in society… In Over Our Heads is full of insight; it reflects broad learning and enormous intellectual effort.”―David Mehegan, Boston Sunday Globe

“[This book] is intellectually exciting and far-reaching in its implications… Kegan’s writing has much to offer developmental psychology, which suffers from a dearth of theoretical frameworks in the area of adult development… This book invites readers to work hard but rewards them greatly. There are foundation-shaking theoretical and research challenges here for mainstream psychology, especially behavioral and social learning approaches that focus on skill training and cumulative (quantitative) change… I thoroughly recommend this exciting book… It has the potential to transform our texts on life span development. It is a book that opens up whole new vistas for developmental researchers, as well as psychologists whose practice includes adult clients.”―Marie R. Joyce, Contemporary Psychology

“A dazzling intellectual tour… In Over Our Heads provides us with entirely fresh perspectives on a number of cultural controversies―the ‘abstinence vs. safe sex’ debate, the diversity movement, communication across genders, the meaning of postmodernism.”―Health and Recovery

From the Back Cover

As parents and partners, employees and bosses, citizens and leaders, we constantly confront a bewildering array of expectations as well as a confusing assortment of expert opinions on what each of these roles entails.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; 44593rd edition (July 21, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 396 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674445880
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674445888
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1.1 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 95 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Robert Kegan

Robert Kegan

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Dr. Robert Kegan is the Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. The recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, his thirty years of research and writing on adult development have contributed to the recognition that ongoing psychological development after adolescence is at once possible and necessary to meet the demands of modern life. His seminal books, The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads, have been published in several languages throughout the world. Dr. Lisa Lahey leads the Personal Mastery component of a path-breaking new doctoral program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, designed to produce the public-sector equivalent of the “turnaround specialist.” A developmental psychologist and educator, and coauthor of Change Leadership, she led the research team that created the developmental diagnostic, now used around the world, for assessing adult meaning-systems.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
95 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Sunyata
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on self-development
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2017
Verified Purchase
Like finding a new song I listen to 100 times in a row, I sometimes find a writer whose expression, dedication to clarity, and way of thinking align so much with my way of viewing the world that it changes my life. Sometimes for years, I think about the world privately in a certain way, only to discover that others have not only thought that way, but really fleshed it out into a science and developed it, helping me understand myself in the process. Kegan is such an author. This book was a painful read at times - not due to the actual book, but due to the fact I saw myself in so many of the struggles of meaning-making trying to push itself to the next level. But given this framework to understand myself - ability to generalize my own struggles down to a struggle of meaning-making - has truly helped me relax and to see some of my weaknesses instead as areas of development, and therefore see them less as personal flaws.

I would describe this as almost a "spiritual" book. Except while most spiritual and new-age self help books out there work on the "transcending" of the structure, this book helps one to understand that structure that one is attempting to transcend with traditional spiritual work. And I think that understanding this aspect of ourselves as just as important as detaching from it, as the structure plays a large role in our lives whether we strongly identify with it or not, and simply dis-identifying it does not necessarily help it move along, become better at handling tasks, or develop greater complexity.

And oftentimes that makes the difference. Truly a great book, by a great author and thinker!
26 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Tom K.
5.0 out of 5 stars Difficult, Dense, But Important and Insightful
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2009
Verified Purchase
The tadpole does not know that he is to become a frog.

The caterpillar does not know she will become a butterfly.

The medieval peasant does not know his grandson will become a citizen.

The astrologer and alchemist do not forsee astronomy and chemistry.

The greatest 18th century philosopher could not anticipate Freud and self-awareness.

The greatest 18th century scientist could not anticipate Darwin and the material basis for much of life.

Yet, today we expect the average American throughout his life to function at a level of self-awareness, maturity, mutiple dimensions, consciousness and technical competency beyond the wisest persons alive in 1850 - in all dimensions of life - as a parent, spouse, worker, community and church member. The American tradition idolizes the simple, self-sufficient Jeffersonian farmer and settler. It also provides optimism about the future and the boundless energy and ability of Americans to conquer the West and the future.

Kegan presents a compelling argument and framework demonstrating that science, culture and society have moved beyond the ability of most citizens to keep pace in any meaningful way. It is a tragedy that there has not been follow-up research, solutions and public policy to build upon these important insights. The Gerbil wheel keeps turning faster and faster and faster. We wonder what is wrong. We blame China, terrorists, Arabs, Russia, liberals or fundamentalists. The requirements of our world have outstripped the ability of our cultural institutions to prepare us for competence, let alone success, in the new world.

This is a disturbing account of the modern situation. We ignore it at our peril and the future of our society. 100 years from today, this will be seen as a watershed book - as a wake-up call, or one that was ignored.
46 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jill A
4.0 out of 5 stars Gift seems good
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2023
Verified Purchase
Seemed well accepted
Helpful
 Report
Shawn B. Phillips
5.0 out of 5 stars The Master Work on the Evolving Human by The Master
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2009
Verified Purchase
Kegan is the man, the mind, the leader in documenting, identifying and defining the evolving state of the self in life.

I've had the great pleasure of reading this book, many times as well as The Evolving Self. I won't bother comparing them at the moment but say I've loved and learned from this both. I have shared this book with more people than I can recall.

If you're at all interested in a map of our varied "levels" of operating, read this book. Easy it won't be--at first--but trust that you'll get the rhythm and it will carry you away. I know he's a complex writer at times but once you get that, it becomes a strength not an issue.

I'd further add, I've spent some nice time with Dr. Kegan and have found him to be as pleasant, enjoyable, and humorous as he is brilliant.

If you're looking for a Harry Potter sort of view of life, run but if you're "man enough" to take the truth, get this now.

We'll all be better for you having read it.
20 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Buyer
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent, Pragmatic Take on Self Development in Our Time
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2011
Verified Purchase
This is a wonderful, thoughtful/mindful read. Highly recommended for anyone wanting a more encompassing look at their own self development, a cognitive-emotional view of the process of self-hood that has been lost on recent academic takes on growth, process, and development beyond "adulthood". Not just for individuals, Organizations surely would benefit too, as Kegan makes a unequivocal case that by enlarging our frames, our capacities, and stretching our self-definitions in the context of family, romantic relationships, and work, we find both greater freedom from the previous "known" and help others in our communication and example to see their own. He even goes beyond this context and reaches into male-female, cultural, and group "otherness" and how growth in our own ideological frames can and does buffer against the constraints of automatic thinking in favor of a more inclusive, more encompassing way of relating, as a result of our own ever adapting self process engaging in the the "mental demands" of our time.
12 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Ozzie Gontang
5.0 out of 5 stars Some great sharing from their research
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2019
Verified Purchase
Great lessons from their ongoing research. Always learning and developing and sharing it all along the way.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Tirzah
3.0 out of 5 stars College Requirement
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2015
Verified Purchase
Keagan has issues with getting to the point for me. I enjoyed the examples with the stories but the rest of it drug on and on for me. I didn't read everything I was supposed to read because the torture was too painful.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

David
5.0 out of 5 stars Book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2018
Verified Purchase
No problems.
Report
Joseph Joseph
5.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary read for all
Reviewed in India on June 29, 2016
Verified Purchase
An extremely tough read. Books like these need teachers to explain it to the average read. His sentence constructions are long and tedious...often appearing irrelevant. This is for style. For content it is absolutely brilliant. The fundamental premise is not to try and 'get rid off' but try to outgrow and achieve a higher level of seeing, knowing and thinking.

It is a text book which can start you off on journey that can shape your life in a manner unimaginable previously. Am surprised/shocked that I came across this book so late in my life. Our educational systems need to be bringing such understandings our way early on.

Growing up does not end with achieving adulthood is the teaching that Kegan brilliantly explains.
Report
Michael McMaster
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading
Reviewed in Canada on May 13, 2016
Verified Purchase
Some good cuts at what are already important for organizational thinking. These demands have been with us for a long time but now it is necessary to take them on seriously. If you don't, your organization will be toast.
Report
Mrs W
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2016
Verified Purchase
Comprehensive and interesting. A little wordy at times but relevant
One person found this helpful
 Report
Paul
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but very poorly written.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
The ideas in this book are really interesting. I've enjoyed the way that the book moves from example to theory.

However, there are far too many points at which the writer follows his thought process without bringing the reader along. Regularly, he discusses a multi-part idea using ambiguous language that doesn't follow the language in other discriptions of the same idea. He then mixes things up by talking in a random order. Some simple editing could have cleared this up really easily and made the book far more readable.
One person found this helpful
 Report