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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Third adulthood stage of development

The marital stage of developmental . The first task is to find another person who is willing to enter into marriage, second, for both parties make the decision to get married. The third task is to successfully negotiate a marriage relationship without significant psychological disengagement (or a psychological divorce to differentiate from a divorce in the legal sense).

This disengagement would usually be seen to occur after 5 to 10 years of marriage

The three main reasons in that time frame are:

1. Any significant scarring of the Free Child ego state has occurred

The Free Child is the most sensitive aspect of the personality. It is where we experience intimacy, vulnerability, closeness and the other sensitive emotions. It provides us with the ability to be truly human and allows us to obtain the most health promoting and rich positive strokes that we can receive. 

Family

However, as it is so sensitive it is also the most susceptible to ‘assault’ and it can be damaged easily. The assault can be physical when we are hit but more often it is harmed by some kind of verbal attack on the Free Child. If we are made fun of, discounted, involved in conflict, ignored or verbally abused in some kind of way it is the Free Child aspect of our personality that is most effected. One of the most basic responses the Free Child has to such offensive communication is to run away. We will automatically hide or defend that part of ourself if we perceive such assault is occurring or think that such things may happen. The Free Child is a quick learner in this way.

This is a good response in that we protect the most sensitive aspect of ourself from being hurt and future damage. On the down side, if hidden away, then we loose the ability to be sensitive in our communication with that person.

In a marriage two people are living in close quarters, day after day for years at a time. It is inevitable there will be times of conflict, feeling hurt, doing unthinking things which adversely effect the FC of the other party, abandoning the other and so on. As a result this will happen as shown in the diagram.

It is inevitable the Free Child of both parties will retreat into hiding in a marriage over time. It is not a matter of if it will happen but how much it will happen. In most instances it is not to severe so as to destroy the quality of the marriage in any significant way. To successfully negotiate this stage of human development the Free Child will not retreat significantly.

It is quite easy to ascertain if this has happened. Imagine that your husband (or wife) was not your husband, you were not married to him, you had never had any romantic love for him, you did not have children, there was no financial connection but he was just a person you knew as a friend. If this was the case would you seek him out to spend time with, would you enjoy his company and want to be with him when socializing?

The more you answer yes to this question the more the relationship still has significant Free Child to Free Child contact. Clearly there is more to a marriage then just FC to FC contact. However if the marriage has it then both parties are motivated to be together, enjoy each other and have that ‘spark’ together in the relationship. This is a very good thing to maintain in a marriage. To successfully complete this stage of development in adulthood the FC to FC contact is maintained to a significant degree. If there is going to be a significant reduction in FC to FC transactions then it will usually have happened in the first 5 to 10 years of marriage.

When the Free Child part of us has been hurt it will automatically withdraw to safety even if we consciously try to avoid doing so.

2. Any psychological agendas have now been fully developed

3. Any difficulties are now fully habituated

Successful completion of this stage of adulthood is to have not obtained a psychological divorce from the marital partner. In the psychology of the individual he and/or she remains psychologically engaged with the partner. The level of psychological disengagement has not reached a point of significance.

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Life script over the life span

Kahless says

Our development goes back to childhood but we do evolve in adulthood. So the 'issues' (lack of va va vroom) in my forties is not something I remember feeling in my twenties. So I have 'evolved' for want of a better word. I am not sure I repressed my child ego state in my twenties.

Life script

0 - 6 years - life script formation


All children have to learn to trust, but are the parents trustworthy?

6 - 12 years - latency period. Crystallisation of the life script decisions made previously

12 - 20+ years - antiscript period where the life script is rejected to some degree. Emotional pain can be ignored or seen as a temporary aberration and thus counselling in a serious way may be avoided. Teens and twenty somethings can still think they can handle it and outside assistance is not necessary. If things don’t get better by the late 20s or early 30s they can’t cope anymore and seek counsel. For instance if there are panic attacks or depression this can be the case.

20+ - late 30s - Implementation of the practicalities necessary for conclusion of the life script to be lived out. A whole series of decisions over an extended time will be made to guarantee the life script comes to its final chapter. Financial decisions, relationship decisions, career decisions, where I live decisions, how I live decisions, how I recreate decisions, educational decisions and so forth.


Each of these women will construct the practicalities of their life such that their life script will be fulfilled.

40+/50+ years - The life script becomes clearer as the person ends up in the in the life circumstances that were decided on in the first 6 years of life.

In the period from 0 to late 30s years of age the actual outcome of the life script has not occurred and thus one could argue that in one sense the person is kind of script free. In that period the person is still collecting all the life experiences (reinforcing memories and feelings) and structuring the practicalities of their day to day living that are necessary for the final chapter of the life script to come to fruition.



Sometimes the teens, 20s and 30s can be quite good times that are at odds to the final life script outcome. But as one hits about 40 years of age the life script begins to show it self clearly. Both the healthy life scripts and unhealthy life scripts.

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