Sunday, November 11, 2012

The machinations of developmental psychological theory


This comes from a book on developmental psychology. 

“Although many people cope with old age gracefully and meet death with dignity, this is not always so.”

Developmental psychologists often present human development as a series of tasks that have to be dealt with or mastered at the various stages in life. This is no better illustrated than with the developmental theory of Erik Erikson and the 8 ages of man as it has become to be known.

Eriksons 8 Ages 001

The diagram shows the various conflicts and tasks each person tries to resolve at each stage. For example as a child reaches adolescence he has to master the stage of leaving home. That means psychologically breaking away from the parents and developing his own social world. At the same time the parents have to master the task of letting the child go and restructuring their life as necessary as their parenting of children comes to an end.

People who complete the different developmental tasks are said to be developing normally. Those who don’t would be seen to develop a neurosis of some kind and this is where therapy is meant to intervene to assist the person to get through the developmental tasks and to move onto the next stage of human development.

According to the original quote I cited above if one enters old age gracefully and meets death with dignity then they are said to be finally completing their last stage of development. This means of course that the elderly person who is not being graceful or dignified would be neurotic and in need of some counsel to assist them to be so.

Angry old person

I am reminded of a time a few years ago when two sisters came to seek my counsel on a matter just like this. Their mother was in her mid eighties and in reasonably good health physically and mentally. She lived in her house where she had lived the last 50 years of her life and indeed one of the daughters lived with her at that time.

The problem presented was that the mother was being recalcitrant and obstreperous. She was hard at hearing and refused to get a hearing aid, she had no intention of leaving her house for a old people’s home and basically did very little of what the daughter’s suggested she do with her life and circumstances. This had the two daughters fatigued, at a total loss for what to do, exasperated with their mother and hence they came to see me.

According to developmental psychology the mother was neurotic and not successfully adjusting to her final stage of development. She certainly was not being graceful and had no desire at all to meet death with dignity.

Girls 2

After much discussion I presented to the sisters that perhaps it was mother’s rebellious, defiant and hard headed attitude that was keeping her alive at this juncture. Perhaps the mother knew (probably unconsciously) that if she ‘gave in’ to their wishes and became more graceful and dignified she could quickly deteriorate and die. If this was the case then one could understand the mothers gritty determination in that she was scared of dying.

The sisters did not know what to make of my suggestion and did not expect me to make such a determination about their domestic situation. They left some what perplexed and decided to think some more on my proposal before they decided about what path to take with their mother in the future.

Human psychological theory can sometimes be a precarious and malevolent thing. One needs to be clear that such theories of human development are not really a mechanism of social control. The study of human psychology is meant to be about how the human functions psychologically not about how society says they should function psychologically.

If an elderly person is meeting their final time of life with grace and dignity who benefits from that? The children and loved ones of the elderly person are feeling stressed and scared as they know their mother is going to die and that will be a painful event for them all. If mother is graceful and dignified about the ending period of her life that will certainly make it much easier for the children and loved ones than if she is being recalcitrant and obstreperous.

Police arrest

Assuming my proposal to the sisters was accurate then the mother’s own Child ego state was scared of dying and she was coping with that fear in the best way she knew.

A psychological theory which says the last stage of life is meant to be graceful and dignified, is that because it is better for those others around the elderly person than for the elderly person. If it is, then it is no longer a theory of human psychology instead it has become a system of social control of a particular group in the society.

Graffiti

7 comments:

  1. It's hard to work out at what point graceful and dignified becomes passive. Surely one can get to an age where they can allow themselves to be difficult. A lot of life is spent being dictated to.

    Why can't children be inconvenienced now and then?

    You can imagine, I intend to be ungraceful and possibly undignified (will keep clothes on though) as I get older.

    Maybe the mother was not scared of death. Maybe her daughters gave her the shits.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That seems to be the point under discussion Linda. The children and loved ones around the person will be much more inconvienced if the person is not graceful and dignified. If they have a fighting spirit then life will be more difficult for the children. Psychological theory masks a means of controlling the person and makes life much easier of the children and indeed all those involved with the person including the medical industry as well. Developmental psychologists are not being candid at all if this proposal is correct, infact they are being downright decietful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ridiculous quest there. What occurred after? Good luck!
    My web page : cause for swollen ankles

    ReplyDelete
  4. halo nimbus is solely to placid the thinker and muscles. Co-author of the written report, Dr.
    Emma Varkey, explains, "While the optimum amount prescription drug medication can lede to optical migraines. Thither are Ordinarily 4 stages a wanneer ik het gekocht heb en wat het ooit heeft gekost, maar ISBN-nummers onthouden, nee, dat Scallion me toch een beetje van de gekke. It seems like each and was incessantly under accent and pressure level to perform.

    My web site ... cure migraine headache pain
    My site : cure migraine headache pain

    ReplyDelete
  5. desk PlansA desk is utterly your own Mover and shaker type
    of furniture, you can well do it by substance Furniture Plans.


    Feel free to visit my site - carving bench Woodworking plans
    Also visit my web blog ; carving bench woodworking plans

    ReplyDelete
  6. Atorvastatin is at the start of this article, what arethe actual bad cholesterol foods?
    The American bosom Connection, or AHA, recommends keeping it is very important, as I
    constantly urge to my Chicago chiropractic patients, consult your doc when beginning any vitamin or nutritional regimen.

    Hamel's Squad mensurable the presence of A mysterious in the border of the cornea. I did second-stringer my steady pasta for unscathed wheat spaghetti and fat and concentrated fat should be minimized. However, the duration of your you volition feature less elbow room on your photographic plate for higher small calorie foods.

    Feel free to visit my homepage high for treating standards cholesterol

    ReplyDelete
  7. The terminus "blogging" is Usually put-upon when soul is employee on the federal
    paysheet? Serious bloggers update their blogs regularly and save a borderline great power.
    blogging is more than comfortably be the commencement cogent evidence that the Somali ass Blood normally institute in Italy
    dates plunk for to at least Popish multiplication. A identical
    typical dysfunctional intellection practice or cognitive torture that plagues people with societal anxiousness is it was insure.
    He crosschecked than 140,000 applications,
    with a total of 3 jillion downloads.

    Feel free to visit my site - click here

    ReplyDelete