This chapter describes three exploratory studies of psychological turning points during the middle years. A psychological turning point is denned as a perceived, long-lasting redirection in the path of a person's life (Clausen 1993). The initial impetus for this project was to expand empirical knowledge of human development in adulthood, exploring both continuities and discontinuities in personality, beliefs, experience, and management of life problems. Until relatively recently, theoretical speculation and research on human development in midlife has been dominated by a life or developmental stages paradigm (e.g., Gould 1978; Levinson et al. 1978; Loevinger 1976; Sinnott & Cavanaugh 1991), and more popularly by the “midlife crisis” (Sheehy 1976, 1995). According to these perspectives, midlife change is triggered by encounters with normatively expected transitions associated with social maturity, such as taking leadership of the family, launching children, and reaching the peak of one's work career. According to the life and developmental stages perspective, successful transit through midlife is characterized by a growing acceptance of responsibility toward others, a sense of maturity, and emotional and personal fulfillment in response to fulfilling social obligations (Levinson et al. 1978; Riegel 1975). The “crisis” perspective, on the other hand, tends to emphasize the struggle rather than the fulfillment: profound social and personal changes may be resisted, perceived as difficult to accomplish, or seen as symbolic of impending aging and death, rather than welcomed as indicative of accomplishment and work well-done.