Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life

I was thrilled to find a copy of this book. I came into ownership of a copy years ago when I was younger and have remembered many the lessons which have helped me over these many years. I have now shared this book with 3 people whom also agree that it is "right on point", at least for our age group. Yeah! The price could not be beat and the seller delivered just as promised. Happy customer.

This book was purchased for my 28-year-old daughter. She and I were visiting and discussing "life" issues and I got out my copy of Passages, copyright 1977, that I had purchased many years ago at a used book store when she was just a toddler. She was so surprised at how many of the marked passages in my book that she identified with that she knew she had to have a copy of her own. A book that identifies life situations across the generations is a book well worth having. I'm so glad you are still making it available to a new generation. Some things never change ....

We are all familiar with Freud's psychosexual stages of development which end in with the pinnacle of adulthood, but during the Twentieth Century psychologists came to see that personal development does not end in adulthood. The psychologist Erik Erikson developed his own psychosocial stages of development which extend into old age. This book owes a fair bit to Erikson, as a quick glance at the bibliography will reveal, but Sheehy has done her own statistical research and it is fair to say that the work has it's own voice. If you have ever found yourself struggling with your problems and feeling quite alone and abnormal this is the book for you. Most of us suffer times of uncertainty, predictable crises, that are 'normal' in human development. It can be greatly reassuring to find that others are quietly suffering too, and even more so to find that they share the same problems. While based on academic research the book is very readable and easily understandable. My main criticism is that Sheehy constantly gives examples of the life stories of the rich and successful. One gets the impression that everyone is a manager of a big business or talented in some way. I am not a high flyer and wanted to hear about Joe Average and how he solved the life crises. For example in my forties I. Like many others, became disillusioned with my career and wanted to find 'something more' but I could not start my own business as a second career as Sheehy's high fliers did. My second criticism is that the fifties decade gets only one chapter, and the book ends there. Sheehy says that she felt she was too young to understand the struggles of older people and so did not tackle them. This failing has been remadied in the later works, particularly the book .

Reading Passages by Gail Sheehy was a turning point in my life. I especially remember "The most important words in midlife are--Let Go. Let it happen to you. Let it happen to your partner. Let the feelings. Let the changes." "You can't take everything with you when you leave on the midlife journey." "You are moving out of roles and into the self." in Part Six "Deadline Decade" Chapter 17 "Riding Out the Downside". Knowing this, I felt a great sense of relief knowing that the only person I could change is myself. From that point on I was quietly inspired to look for more information that I could read or hear (tapes) that would help me pull myself together. I treated my family more lovingly and I went back to college to finish my degree. Everyone would benefit from reading this inspiring classic. Thank you Gail Sheehy for your wonderful insight.

At first I thought this book might not be relevant to me, some 20 years after it was written in a different country. Whilst some of the stereotypical behaviours and social "norms" are different, it is easy to see the translation of the insights to today and in a different country. And while the USA of the 70s is gone this book provided me with a better understanding of some of the (largely unconscious) behaviour of friends, parents and siblings, behaviours which I had not identified or simply taken for granted are now a little easier to fathom. As I read about each life stage I could identify it with those I know and this enabled me to forgive, empathise with and accept a lot which had previously left me hurt and baffled.Although fairly young (35) I can already see some of the patterns at play which Gail describes. I don't care if it's not original work or if the lifetstyles are different and the social pressures altered, this book is still very applicable to those who can objectively view themselves and those around them.This book looks at middle and upper middle class university graduates (called "college" graduates in the US) with primarily professional vocations in accounting, law, medicine etc (stangely little mention of engineers!). Also, I suspect the people are largely private school educated. Whilst people in other circustances might be under different pressures, I have seen similar crises and cycles in a wide range of people. A perceptive reader would learn from this book, nomatter their circumstances.