ABSTRACT
This chapter includes overview books and papers on female adult development. Adult development represents a relatively new focus for psychoanalysts. Contemporary theorists of adult development maintain that psychological development continues throughout the life cycle with new dynamic and phase-specific tasks. The chapter covers theoretical and integrative papers that are relevant to a psychoanalytic inquiry into female adult development. Erik Erikson's Childhood and Society proposes that each stage of the life cycle is characterized by certain events or crises that must be resolved in order for development to proceed smoothly. He extends Freud’s psychosexual theory of development beyond adolescence by discussing developmental potentials at all stages of life, especially the capacities for intimacy, generativity, and ego integrity. In Adult Development, Calvin and Nemiroff, Robert Colarusso outlines a psychoanalytic framework for adult development that focuses on stages and tasks in the adult life cycle.
