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Summary:

“Metaphorically speaking, EDT provides us with one possible account of how individuals navigate the straits of human existence by using navigational lore, common sense, increasingly complex maps, algorithms, and intuition.”

• “Susanne R. Cook-Greuter is an independent scholar who is recognized for her ground-breaking work in ego development theory and the function of language in meaning making. She has a doctorate in human development and psychology from Harvard.”
• “EDT has come a long way since Jane Loevinger’s original (1970) and sparse stage descriptions compared to our current understanding of the full trajectory of development, and the mechanisms, and patterns of vertical growth in the personal realm.”
• “I have outlined one possible path from the unconscious, undifferentiated symbiosis of the newborn to the conscious experience of embeddedness in the universe of mature adults.”
• “I have tried to chronicle the development of the self from prerational to metarational and from preverbal ignorance (= not knowing) to beginning postsymbolic wisdom and witnessing.”
• “I identified nine different self-stories, nine different ways of defining what is real and important in the Western world. These ways develop sequentially and represent increasing levels of individuation and integration.”

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RELEVANT QUESTIONS

What is Ego?

“It is ego’s function to ceaselessly interpret experience and to try to make coherent sense of it. If you prefer the hard sciences, you can think of ego as the central processing unit. If liberal arts are more your style, ego as the story teller names it well.”

• “Ego represents the striving of human beings to understand themselves and the world they live in. It is the tireless organizer, interpreter, and synthesizer of experience. Its task is to turn experience into a coherent narrative about the world. How does it do that? It does so by telling a culturally influenced story about who we are, why we are here and for what purpose.”
• “Ego underlies the universal drive to explain everything and make us feel safe, important, and to belong.”
• “Ego labors mightily to create and maintain meaning and vigorously defends against dissonant information and its deep, unspeakable sense of helplessness.”
• “The more one strives for greater insight and seeks detachment from ego, the more attached one is to whatever one is seeking.“
• “Ego tries to usurp even the loftiest spiritual notions to feel good about itself. Trungpa Rinpoche famously diagnosed this tendency as spiritual materialism.”

What is Human Development?

“Human development in general can be looked at as a progression of different ways of making sense of reality or in a sequence of stages of meaning making.”

• “Overall, human development as I describe it, moves from the newborn’s unconscious union with mother to a conscious union with everyone and everything.”
• “Development from birth to adulthood shows an overall trend of increasing differentiation towards an independent, well-defined, individual self-identity or self-authorship.”
• “There is wide consensus that human beings are born undifferentiated and symbiotically merged with their initial caregivers. Good adjustment in adulthood depends on the successful solution to the problems of these earliest periods in life including developing a separate self-identity as well as adequate psychosexual, intellectual, emotional, social and moral development.”
• “To summarize, mature integration as a human being entails an increasing capacity to notice ego’s workings. At the same time, we can lighten-up and experience the simple and childlike joy of being alive. We can delight in the senses and our inner world – moment to moment as well as appreciate the lives and struggles of humanity.”

Overview of Ego Development Theory (EDT)

Meaning Making:

“EDT is a theory about meaning making. Making sense of experience seems to be one of the fundamental drives in human nature. This need for meaning is irrepressible and ongoing.”