To love and to work, Freud’s famous definition of psychological maturity, here becomes the focusing principle for a renewed examination of the dominant themes that play themselves out in adult life. Erik Erikson, Neil Smelser, and nine leading experts in adult development consider the stages that adults pass through and the crises that adults confront as they attempt to create a meaningful life. Theme of work and Love in Adulthood is a book that raises many fascinating questions about adult experience. How, for example, does work in competition; must one be pursed at the expense of the other? Is there a point in life past which men lay less stress on mastery and turn more towards emotional fulfillment? And do women experience a shift in the opposite direction? More generally, why do adult crises fall into predictable patterns and how do adults grow as they respond to these crises? Is the recent broadening of standards for adult conduct an opportunity for personal liberation or a source of personal debilitation?