Perhaps one of the most significant contributions developmental theorist Robert Kegan has made to the study of human development, lies in his stressing of the importance of context and environment in the evolution of human beings. Kegan refers to this as our embeddedness he speaks not only of external embeddedness in a culture but also of the internalized embeddedness of each developmental stage in which our psyches dwell.
**The Cultures of Embeddedness can be understood as the intimate contexts out of which we are repeatedly recreated. They exist not only in the form of external social and psychological support but also as part of an individual's identity.
This embeddedness has three primary functions for human development.
Kegan emphasizes the importance of regarding each phase as an evolving transitional process where dynamic tension pushes us to grow. Regarding the developmental process as an assending spiral, Kegan has defined six stages or selves. In his first book The Evolving Self Kegan explored previous developmental theories and elaborated on his own. Relying extensively on his writing, I have attempted to provide a consise overview of his basic definitions of these six stages of development. In addition, I have gratefully utilized Kegan's Table 7: Forms and Functions of embeddedness cultures (p.118-120: The Evolving Self) as a model from which I have created an adapted table:the Components of Embeddedness which is featured on the following pages.
