From Subject to Object: A Constructive-Developmental Approach to Reflective Practice

Abstract

In the first part of this chapter, Kegan and Lahey offer constructive-developmental theory as a framework to understand the goals (increasing or transforming a person’s way of knowing) and processes of reflection (moving what is subject to object). They explain the three successively encompassing ways of knowing in adulthood, showing how each has a different subject–object relationship, with each being able to look at (take as object) what the prior way of knowing could only look through . In the second part of the chapter, the authors integrate practice and theory: they explain how to support development from one way of knowing to another, by describing and illustrating a novel reflection approach they call the immunity-to-change process. They show how overturning an immunity results in a person’s new way of knowing, where the person is able to “take as object” that which he was before subject-to. As a consequence, the person is capable of accomplishing his more complex self-improvement goals.