Human development

Developmental psychologists have tended to divide up the human life span into the following three categories. Most books on human psychological development use this breakdown.

One can portray human development as a series of hurdles of tasks that the person must jump over or master. For example in childhood the child has to learn to walk, talk, be toilet trained, deal with the oedipus complex, go to school and so on. They need to go through all the stages of cognitive development and moral development and so on. A child goes through a period of significant and quite fast physical change and psychological change.

One can say the same applies for the teenager. They have a whole series of hurdles to jump or tasks to master. They also have to go through a series of cognitive and moral development stages, learn how to engage with the opposite sex, develop a social support system with their peers and so forth. Like in childhood they go through a period of quite fast and significant physical and psychological development.

Developmental psychologist have decided to make a separation between the stages of childhood and adolescence. This corresponds with the age about when puberty starts. For some reason at this point they say a person has moved onto a new stage of psychological development. They distinguish between the psychological stage of childhood and the psychological stage of adolescence as occurring when puberty arrives.

To my mind this is an arbitrary distinction which is a nonsense and I have not heard of the rational for doing this. One could argue that this distinction needs to be made because the developmental tasks required in childhood are significantly different than the developmental tasks required in adolescence. This is a hypothesis with which I would agree. Without a doubt a 4 year old child is dealing with very different developmental issues than a 14 year old teenager. However the choice of 12 or 13 years of age for the new developmental stage to arrive seems quite a random decision to make.

It can also be argued that a 2 year old child and an 8 year old child are very different physically and the psychological developmental issues they are dealing with are also quite different. So why not conclude that they are two separate developmental stages instead of including them in the same developmental stage as is currently the case. The same of course applies for a 13 year old and the 18 year old. At the moment they are in the same developmental stage but they are also quite different physically and psychologically. Why are they not defined as two separate developmental stages?

One can really see the two stages of childhood and adolescence as one developmental stage. In both stages the young person is going through significant and rapid physical and psychological change. Whereas in adulthood this is not the case. Yes there is indeed physical and psychological change occurring in adulthood but it can be seen as much slower and less psychologically significant. Thus there is much more focus on the younger person as this is where more of the difficulties can occur if the development is not occurring as it should. Developmental psychology is about developmental change in the person so one could see the human life cycle in a different way. Divided up into phases where there is a lot of psychological change occurring and not.

In this model pre-adulthood (childhood and adolesence) is seen as a phase of significant physical and psychological development. Adulthood is a phase of much less significant physical and psychological development. At the end of life we have another developmental stage, Post-adulthood. One could say this stage begins in the late 50s or 60s. In this period there is significant physical change as the body again moves into such a phase of change. These changes can have significant consequences including major disability, deformity or death. These changes force the person into significant psychological change as they accept, or seek to deny, the consequences of such change and acceptance of their bodily changes. With the physical changes the person has to change their perception of them self and their interaction with others and the environment. Thus one could argue that this constitutes a significant level of psychological change and hence we have another period of the development cycle.

For instance the loss of sight, hearing, memory, physical abilities and many other conditions like Parkinson's disease all require the person to make a significant psychological readjustment about how they perceive them self, their identity and how they interact with the world. Of course with illness and accidents these can occur in the adulthood stage and also result in disability and or disfigurement. Again the person has to change their perception of self and the world like happens in the Post-adulthood stage.

This model is about periods of developmental change and periods of non significant change which seems to be the task for the developmental psychologist. In the beginning of life there is a period of significant physical and psychological change. To arbitrarily break this up seems to be a nonsense. This is followed by a period of about 30 to 40 years where there is much more consistency in ones physical and psychological state such that much less psychological development and change occurs. Finally in the last couple of decades of life one again goes into a state of significant physical change. It is postulated that this would then result in significant psychological change as the person reorients their identity and perception of self to correctly align with their physical self.

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Developmental stages of adulthood

I am currently reading a book by Jay Haley about the work of Milton Erikson. It’s a summation of the work of Erikson. Haley was probably trained in psychoanalysis because in his writing there are a number of references to how it is not necessary look at the past, what a therapist deals with is what the client presents now. There is a flavor of rebellion against the psychoanalytic approach in this way.

This leaves one with a telling question: if you don’t go back to the past of the person what do you do? He suggests a short term, here and now approach that is family therapy oriented. 

However one thing I have discovered that was somewhat insightful for me, is one of the greats of family therapy - Milton H. Erikson - rarely saw the whole family together. What he did see was various family members alone or in various combinations separately.

This is what I have done over the years even though I never considered myself a true family therapist because I rarely saw the whole family together. Now I discover to do family therapy you do not actually have to see all the family together. In my book working with drug and alcohol users I spend significant time discussing therapy with the teenage drug user and this is exactly the approach I describe when I work with them. You see any person in the family who becomes relevant to the issue at hand and in any combination that is relevant.

Family therapy

In essence I am doing family therapy but I certainly diverge from Erikson and Haley in that I will and regularly do delve into the past and individual psychology of the various parties. However this ‘discovery’ has solved another problem for me as well.

Some counsellors have a rule that if you see a couple then you cannot see either party  in individual counselling. Or if you see an individual then you cannot also start seeing them and their partner for couples counselling. I (along with other therapists I may add)  have never adhered to this view but some can get quite hot under the collar about it all and start saying things like it is unethical and so forth.

Well know I have theoretical back up for it all. I am doing family therapy Milton H. Erikson style, which is true, I am.

Body dysmorphia

However I have digressed from the point at hand

When working with an adult client at some point I always ask myself the question -why now? Why has the client sought psychological help now and why not 5 years before or in 5 years time? If there has not been a specific event that has resulted in the client attending counselling why has the client appeared now? The answer to it can of course be related to developmental psychology. The person has reached a particular developmental stage in the human life cycle and it is causing difficulties for them.

Developmental psychology

There has been a huge amount written on this area with a prime example being Freud. This chart summaries Freud’s theory of the psychosexual genesis

It shows the different developmental stages a child goes through and isolates the the developmental tasks it has to master. Most notably the oral, anal and phallic stages. Although the latency, eurethral and genital stages are added here most of the emphasis is on the pre latency stages. As a child goes through each of the stages they effect its personality development and the person becomes who they are. We all get fixed to some degree in the oral, anal and phallic stages.

The two charts below show what can happen if a person is fixated at the oral stage of development. It is divided into the oral sucking and oral biting stages. If unsuccessfully mastered the person can develop things like eating disorders or addictions especially an addiction to cigarettes.

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In the second chart the top two rows relate to oral sucking and the bottom two rows relate to oral biting.

Whilst this is all good and well it only relates to childhood. In one way this is logical as it is during that stage that we develop the basis of our personalty. By adulthood most theories of child development agree that the personality is formed and in most instances after that time little extra change occurs.

However that does not mean there are not subsequent stages of development to master. Just like the child has to master the oral and anal stages of development the adult also has to successfully move through various stages. Thus we have the following equations

Childhood stages = master the stage and major impact on personality formation

Adulthood stages = master the stage and minor impact on personality formation

Throughout history these adult stages of development have been the poor cousin in developmental psychology. Not much has been said about them and they are by and large ignored or at least viewed as much less important than the childhood stages of development.

When adult stages have been discussed people often gravitate to the theories of Erik Erikson (No he wasn’t Milton’s brother!). A summary of Erik Erikson’s theory of development called the eight ages of man, is illustrated below

As one can see it covers the whole life span from birth until the end of life in old age.   The last three are the adulthood stages of development. He saw each stage as being a ‘battle’ between two possible outcomes. For instance in the stage he calls Adulthood he sees the goal for the individual to develop generativity versus a state of stagnation. 

In generativity the adult person seeks to establish and guide the next generation including things like productivity and creativity. He says in this way the mature person is dependent on the younger generation. The adult person needs to be needed and this need can be satisfied by guiding the young. If this is not achieved then the adult person will suffer a pervading sense of stagnation and personal impoverishment.

I find this a reasonably good statement but to me it lacks substance. It would be good for the adult person to become a guide and teacher for the young but is that it! Is that the one and only developmental task the adult person is meant to master? And from a therapeutic point of view, if one has a client who is 40 years old how is this idea of generativity vs stagnation meant to help. To me it is too esoteric in this way.

There needs to be more and by and large developmental psychology has failed in this way. Hence I arrive at Milton Erikson and Haley and what they developed. As mentioned before they refused to delve into the past unlike the majority of developmental psychology and therapeutic approaches. In my view this was a counter reaction away form the psychoanalytic philosophy of Freud.

I stated before, “if you don’t go back to the past of the person what do you do?”

As a result of this philosophy they were forced to construct a developmental theory of adulthood that was based on a behavioral understanding or focus. They developed a therapy that was short term solution focused, oriented primarily to behavioral change in how the family members related to each other.

This theory came from a clinical therapeutic basis, meaning it will tend to be readily applicable in the therapeutic setting unlike Erik Erikson’s theory. As this evolved out of their own experience with clients it meant it was their observations of a large number of clients. They were starting to identify where people tended to have problems as they moved through their adulthood. They were identifying the times (or stages) when adults had to master new tasks as a result of their increasing age.

But they kind of did it back to front. Instead of saying OK a child has to learn how to breast feed successfully whilst relating to mother, therefore the first developmental stage is the oral stage. If it does not successfully master this then the problems it will have are....

In this case they were identifying the developmental stage first which then subsequently led to the formulation of the problems relevant to that stage.

Instead Milton Erikson and Haley said, “I observe that children who present with problems seem to have difficulty leaving the parents and the home.”

In this instance first they identified the problem which subsequently led to the formulation of the developmental stage

In essence they came up with a developmental theory of adulthood by accident.

Adulthood developmental stages

The courtship period developmental task - establish a long term relationship with a mate.

Being a social person as an adult developmental task - establishing a social world external to the family of origin and some what external to the mate.

Getting married developmental task - make the decision to enter into a marriage type relationship.

Dealing with childbirth and young children developmental task - coping with and mastering the difficulties of raising young children

The middle years of marriage developmental task - between 5 to 15 years of marriage when divorce tends to happen due to the change in perception of marriage by one or both parties.

Parents letting children leave home developmental task - parents being able to wean self off children and let them move away.

Resolving the movement into old age developmental task - mastering coping with changes in the body and accepting death as a matter of course.

An interesting collection of stages that are directly applicable in counselling. If a 25 year old female presents with agoraphobia the question must be asked, “Is she successfully mastering the courtship stage developmental stage”? As I have said before sometimes it’s clear that family dynamics are involved and at other times they are just not relevant and then one moves to an individual past oriented approach to the counselling.

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The young therapist - Part 1

Jay Haley

“When a therapist is young, he should not try to appear wiser than he is. The beginning therapist is often young and even unmarried. Faced with a couple married for 25 years, the beginner may be tempted to act as if he understands that stage of marriage as well as they do. It is not so. Instead, the therapist should find a stance to work from that is acceptable to the older couple. For example, the beginner can say, “Obviously you know more about marriage than I do since you’ve been married for a long time, and certainly you know more about your marriage than I do. But as an outsider, I can offer you an objective view of some of your problems.””

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This has some personal significance for me because I began as a very young therapist. I began running my first therapy groups with a cotherapist when I was 22 years old. Probably about a year later I started seeing clients individually and has done so ever since. My circumstances were unusual in that both my parents were psychologists and they ran one of the first ever private therapy training institutes in the city where I lived.

I started my original psychology degree when I was 20 years old and began in my parents training institute when I was 21. In those days in a university psychology degree you would study psychology for three or four years before you actually got to work directly with any clients. In the private training institute it was very hands on. Starting with being a therapist with another student as a client in the training group with the supervisor there. Then as a cotherapist with ‘real’ clients and then finally in individual therapy, all under supervision of course until one passed the exam and was qualified.

When I began in the private training institute I was the youngest by far and remained the youngest student in it for a number of years. I experienced the situation of an early to mid 20 year old therapist working with adult clients who were at time many years older than me.

My mother with Bob Goulding on workshop - holiday. The person sitting with the long hair in front is myself (early 20s year old at the time)

Obviously I was aware of this and at times I did think of it but not really all that often. I can only recall one situation where a client stated it to me that I was young. It is highly likely that some talked about my age to others in their life when they talked about the therapy they were doing with me. 

However in the early years I always worked in private practice which meant the clients who came to see me, they selected me and paid me money to counsel them. They were not assigned to me which can happen in a counselling agency where the client does not get to choose which therapist they see. This I imagine allowed for some self selection by clients. If they felt my age was a problem they would have never selected me in the first place and this may account for the fact that only one client ever said anything to me.

I can recall talking about it with other trainee therapists and thinking about it my self. This is why I have quoted Haley above. What view can one take of this, as young therapists are not all that uncommon. Haley’s point seems to be quite a good one and what I used to say was a bit similar. My view was:

“I have learnt the basic theory and the basic techniques so I just do what I do. If people get something out of it they will come to see me and if they don’t then they wont.” 

I think this is similar to what Haley says. There is no attempt to justify or explain away the age issue. No attempt to say that age does not matter or some similar kind of thing. It is a statement of I am who I am and the input I can provide. This is available if you want it and if you do not, that is OK.

Young adults.

What is the problem?

Obviously the problem for the young therapist is a lack of life experience. But does this mean anything. As a young therapist I lacked more (at times much more) life experience that almost all of my clients. However people still voluntarily came to see me and obviously got something out of being my client. 

At that age I did not understand what effect lesser life experience would have on me as a therapist. Now as an older person I do understand. This lack of understanding actually helped I think because at that age I had belief in myself. It was not until later that I realized maybe my belief in self was a bit unrealistic. However I had a confidence in what I was doing and most people respond favorably to a person who has confidence and particularly a person who just is who they are which my statement above tends to say. I never tried to show my self as being more experienced than I was and never felt the need to justify myself. I accepted myself as a 22 year old therapist doing what he had been trained to do with the personal and professional resources he had at that time.

Clearly young therapists can and do work effectively, so life experience is by no means a necessity for an effective therapist. Having said that life experience can help. Having been a very young therapist and now an older therapist I am of the view that it can help in the practice of therapy.

All new therapists are technicians, no matter how old they are. They have been taught the basic theory and practical techniques of the therapy they are trained in. When they meet their first clients they apply those techniques were it is appropriate. The practice of therapy can have a mechanical feel in this way. After time as they get life experience as a therapist they can stop being a person who just applies the technique and they can relate more to the client as a person who also does therapy with them. You can’t make that shift without the life experience as a therapist no matter how much other life experience one may have. Thus it is my view that life experience as a therapist is more important than life experience in general.

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