Mid-Life Transition and Mid-Career Crisis: A Special Case for Individual Development

Abstract

A adult life is neither unpredictable nor of a single piece. The present article proposes to show why this is the case as well as to highlight some major organizational consequences. The focus is on the mid-life transition, through which we all must pass whether lightly or with much travail. For those in organizations, that transition often manifests itself as a mid-career crisis. The two effects are interactive, but it often will be the case that an individual will precipitate a mid-career crisis as a result of a panic reaction to a mid-life transition, with the individual precipitously changing professions, getting a divorce or following some other similar course of action. Although there are still far more questions than answers, useful experiences and research are beginning to accumulate on this subject. Recent advances in knowledge at once reinforce the need for organizations and professional associations to provide facilitative experiences for mid-life transitionists, and they also suggest some specifics about the when and the what of these experiences. Specifically, the succeeding emphases will be upon:

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