A Study of the Development of an Individual - Research Paper Example

A Study of the Development of an Individual Known To You The Patience is an eighteen-year-old Black girl who has taken asylum in the UK after she escaped the war-torn Sierra Leone. Since her arrival, at the age of sixteen, she constantly has to face new situations and adapt to a new lifestyle and culture. Patience also fears that her family has perished in Sierra Leone, and is now facing the necessity of carving out an existence for herself – something that was not expected of her till she was 21 in her native land. There has been an abrupt and vast change in Patience’s life, where she has lost contact with her family, friends, neighborhood, and all else that was once familiar to her. In UK, she is an asylum seeker, a status she thinks is derogatory. She is also conscious of herself as a Black individual amid White majority, and fears the discrimination that it entails. Though she aspires to go for higher studies, she is hesitant about her role as a member of the new society that she finds herself in. Research Method Used The author conducted a series of in-depth interviews with the subject. However, the interaction followed a more biographical/narrative approach where Patience narrated the events that have followed her getting asylum in UK. Patience has recollected her personal feelings, confusions, distress and actions that she has taken in order to conform to the social standards. She has candidly recounted her fears about her changing identity, and presented specific instances about how she has been reacting to the changed environment. Analysis Recognition of Patience’s Key Developmental Needs Patience is at an age that forms a very crucial phase of life – as a teen moving on towards adulthood, she needs to evaluate and debate her identity, and come up with a holistic view of herself and her aspirations for the future. (Morgan, T. Clifford, Richard A. King, J. R. Weisz, and J Schopler, 1993). She also needs to align her social existence with her peers’ so as to have a healthy social life. At her current stage in life, she ideally needs a reference point in the form of family and societal norms, so that she can construct her own opinions about religion, ethics, and philosophy, and decide upon a general modus operandi of life. (Hillgard, R. Earnest, Richard C. Atkinson, and Rita L Atkinson. 1976.) The complexity of her identity resolution process is compounded by the fact that she has no primary group in the form of family or friends to present a precedent or to act as role model. There is also a lack of community support, as she is displaced and views herself as an alien in UK. Her need to feel related to the society, to be a useful and acceptable part of the social structure of her campus as well as of the country as a whole, is also very important. (Misra, et al. 2002.) Further, Patience also needs to reconcile to the fact that she is an asylum seeker, but view it in a guilt-free manner. She needs to accept that she is a Black, and that, even if she is in the minority, there is no reason to feel alienated. As Patience feels the effects of changed context (she is an outsider, Black, Muslim, asylum seeker in UK), she needs to accept these new identities, but must develop a positive self-concept. Literature Survey and Analysis of Patience Developmental Needs Patience, had she continued to live her life in her native Sierra Leone with her family, would have evolved through the bio-sociological development like an average teenager of her society. But since Patience has been separated from her family, culture, and everything else that she was affiliated to, her transition becomes an even more complex process. Now, in addition to adjusting with her changing physicality and trying to set her career goals, Patience also has to come to terms with the new identities that she feels are being imposed on her. In UK, she has been made aware of her status as a Black girl, as an asylum seeker, and as an orphan. She is also uncomfortable at the pace at which UK adolescents are expected to become independent and make a foray into the adult life. Her native culture has not equipped her to own up responsibility for herself, or to lead a vastly independent life away from family support. Researchers like Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget have noted the predictable and sequential transitions that happen as the young adolescent moves towards adulthood. Psychologists like Bronfenbrenne, Sugarman, and researchers like Hopson and Adams, have gone further to incorporate the translational needs of a person with respect to the changing environment. Erik Erikson identifies various crises that a person has to resolve at each stage of life that he comes across. The eight stages elaborate how conflicting notions and feelings are adjusted to arrive at an integrated self-concept. According to Erikson, during adolescent, the teenagers are under enormous pressure to discover their own distinct identity. They have to develop a set of personal values and goals with respect to occupation, adult roles, politics and religion. (Morgan, T. Clifford, Richard, A. King, J. R. Weisz, and J Schopler, 1993). Patience can be seen to be going through this phase – she is a teenager and has to resolve issues of personal identity and establish a stable pattern for her future life. Patience has, in fact, been successful in deciding her career option as Nursing, but on a more personal front she is going through a period when her identity as a Black, Muslim girl is being threatened – not politically, but due to the changed social context. The feelings of inferiority made her opt for church as well as strive for a lighter skin color. According to Erikson’s theory, if Patience is unable to overcome her inferiority, she might get further isolated, and will not be able to develop healthy, intimate social relations in the next stage of her life as a young adult. (Morgan, T. Clifford, Richard, A. King, J. R. Weisz, and J Schopler, 1993). Though Erikson has diligently elaborated on the early childhood crises, his model is not very satisfactory in assessing the peculiar condition of Patience. As Patience is forced to reckon with a much greater challenge than any other person of her age, this eight-stage theory appears to shed only a cursory light on her specific identity dilemma. According to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (Paquette, D. and John Ryan, http://pt3.nl.edu/paquetteryanwebquest.pdf), or rather, Bio-ecological System theory as it is known now, a person has to deal with a multi-layered environment as he grows up to become an adult. Though developed for evaluating the problems facing the family and the students in an industrial age, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory can be extended to the present situation. In the case of Patience, the Micro-system (which comprises of the family, school, neighborhood) has been almost erased and replaced with novel parameters. She has been thrust into the Exo-system (the environment that comprises of parent’s office, community interactions, and the world that the child experiences through his parents) too soon, as in the absence of family she has to interact with the community on a first hand basis. Her Macro-system too has completely changed – the culture, the norms, the expectations of the UK society are completely different from the one in Sierra Leone. Bronfenbrenner postulates that in the case the micro-system breaks down, the person will not have the tools to explore the other parts of the environment, the ones involving the Exo-and-Macro-systems. This might result in anti-social behavior, lack of discipline, and in-ability to provide self-direction. Due to her abrupt exclusion from the Micro-system, Patience can be seen grappling with the issues of establishing her identity as a Black in a predominantly White majority society (as she resorted to using skin lightening creams to become more acceptable, and even though she is a Muslim, she goes to the church). However, the theory gives the solutions in the form of socio-political policy reform for the consolidation of family life. It also reiterates that secondary institutions like schools cannot fulfill the gap left by the lack of relationship with significant individuals like parents and siblings. Though Bronfenbrenner’s environmental systems are identifiable in Patience’s case, the theory gives little insight on tackling the problem under her special circumstances. It also does not give adequate mileage to Patience’s own efforts at trying to make sense of her new surrounding, but talks of making external changes to the environment – which, in case of Patience’s lack of family, and her status of an asylum seeker, are impossible to attempt. Furthermore, this model has little to say about the identity crisis that Patience is currently going through. Sugarman (1986) used a 7-stage model to deal with transitional periods in a person’s life. Unlike the sequential models of life-span development, Sugarman’s theory acknowledges that a person is faced with several transitional events throughout his life, and the intensity and the duration of each is dependent on the specific individual. According to Sugarman’s concept, Patience has been through the first, the Immobilization stage – she has already felt shock and feelings of being overwhelmed when she first arrived in UK. She has been caught in the Self-doubt stage, where she has no precedent to guide her course of action. Patience is still struggling in the Let-Go stage (as she tries to accept that her family might be dead, and that as a Black, she’ll have to confront prejudice and discrimination in some form or the other). Simultaneously, she is also in the Testing Phase, where she is experimenting with new identities (her decision to attend church). But she is still far away from the Search-For-Meaning stage when she would achieve new attachments and bond with her changed reality, and later, in the Integration stage, become relaxed about her new identity, and feel at peace with all parameters of her life. Sugarman’s theory, perhaps, best describes the present state of Patience’s life – she is trying very hard to let-go of her past, and her previous identities. With the full knowledge about her changed circumstances, Patience knows that she has to accept the transition from a girl who was to live under her family’s aegis till she became a full grown adult, to a person who has to look out for herself – financially, socially, and for her physical safety. Patience is also testing new modes of living. She is trying out the church so that she becomes a part of the ‘normal’ group. Her efforts to lighten her skin too reflect her need to conform to what is considered right in the new social settings. Though she is in a completely different environment from what she used to be, Patience is showing resilience in adapting to it. Her quest to seek a higher educational degree shows that as far as her career identity is concerned, she has resolved any confusion, literally on her own – while the normal teenagers do this with help from family and peers. This 7-stage model however does not elaborate on the associated psychological trauma that occurs with life-changing events. Also, each stage appears to be resolved by the individual without intervention from the environment. The socio-cultural context, and the availability of options for testing, is not given importance – too much emphasis is placed on the individual’s ability to transgress each stage. The fact that Patience is going through a crisis, involving emotional distress as well as identity disintegration, cannot be explained well solely using Sugarman’s model. Adult Life Events and the Transition Cycle described by Hopson and Adams (Dai Williams, http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/pit1.htm/ Dai Williams) can be better used to explain problems like the culture shock experienced by Patience. Hopson and Adams claim that a transition period can be triggered by both positive and negative events, but after the preliminary distinctive reaction of shock (following negative event) or elation (following a positive event), the further course proceeds on much the same lines. The Shock stage is concerned with concentrating on the day-to-day mundane working of the individual. In the second phase, Provisional Adjustments have to be made; the individual strives to make sense of the change in the light of his previous learning. Patience probably already has been through the above two phases during the first few months of her stay in UK. The next stage in the Hopson and Adams model is the Inner Contradictions and Disillusionment stage. This is when Patience grasps the full implication of her situation. She now confronts an entirely new set of values, beliefs and modes of social existence. Her old view of the world is being pushed aside as the new reality emerges. As her old ways of coping do not hold water in the present context, Patience is under tremendous stress to learn the new social desirables and to conform to them. The Inner Crisis stage has set in, as Patience realizes that she can neither quit the situation nor become a fully acceptable member of the social settings. She sees her asylum seeker status as having a derogatory nuance, and her Black skin as a recipient of social discrimination. While she is intent on hiding her asylum seeker status, she is trying to let go other facets of her previous life – of being a Muslim. She is also trying to accept herself as an orphan and as a Black in a White dominated system. The Recovery and Reconstruction Phase might follow soon, as Patience is intelligent enough to understand her predicament, and is experimenting with her newfound identities. In the course of recovery, she might feel frustrated and depressed, as she has no support from family, no reference group, and feels alienated from her peers. The Hopson and Adam 5-Phase Transaction Cycle has a wider scope as it take into account the contribution of the environmental and the family-support factors in the ultimate recovery of the person. It however treats both the positive and the negative events on a similar platform and goes as far as to claim that the gradual transition towards recovery is almost a facsimile in both the cases, which is doubtable. Also, in Patience’s case, there is an element of identity crises, both due to her age as well as her status of an asylum seeker, which the above model cannot suitably address. Conclusion The various Lifespan Development theories discussed above are useful in understanding the psychological stress that Patience is going through as an asylum seeker in a culturally different nation. The sequential developmental stages theories like Erikson’s elaborate well upon her identity crises, but only from the perspective of a teenager growing in familiar environment. Erikson’s model fails to account for the bigger and complex crisis that Patience is facing in the new surroundings. The transitional cycle models are better equipped to describe and analyse Patience’s needs to realign her identity and to forego her past. As Bronfenbrenne’s theory predicts, the disintegration of Patience Micro-system is adversely affecting her interaction and relationships in the Exo- and- Macro-system. According to Sugarman’s lifespan development approach, Patience has been through the Immobilization and Self-doubt stage, and is currently in the Let-Go and the Testing stage. Hopson and Adam’s Shock, Provisional Adjustments, Inner Contradictions and Disillusionment, Inner Crisis, and Recovery and Reconstruction stages can be seen quite clearly in the case of Patience. There are however several aspects of Patience situation which are unique to her being a Black, Muslim, asylum seeker in the UK. Her development as an integrated individual can be furthered by emotional security and supportive work environment. For this, Patience needs counseling to develop transitional skills and set clear goals about her future. (Dai Williams, http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/intro.htm) The biographical approach employed by the author has made Patience become more aware of her needs, especially related to her identity and social conformity. Though she nurtures some inhibitions about her future, she appears to be focused upon accepting the changed facts of her life. The research, thus has brought to light the key developmental needs for the subject, as well as presented her case in the light of the available Literature. The study also focuses on the need to counsel Patience so that she is able to break out of the transitional crisis (Templeton, R. Debra, http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:z7gFG0jo2uoJ:www.coe.uga.edu/leap/adulted/pdf/templeton_debra_r_200405_edd.pdf+sugarman%27s++theory++lifespan++&hl=en&gl=in&ct=clnk&cd=5), and develop a consistent and holistic self-concept, as opposed to the drifting and experimenting approach that she is presently taking towards life. Reference List 1. Morgan, T. Clifford, Richard A. King, J. R. Weisz, and J Schopler,1993, Development During Adolescent, Adulthood, and Old Age, in Introduction To Psychology pp. 473, Tata McGraw-Hill, India 2. Hillgard, R. Earnest, Richard C. Atkinson, and Rita L Atkinson,1976), Developmental Psychology, in Introduction To Psychology, pp. 87-99, Mohan Primlani for Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd, India. 3. Misra, G., K.D. Broota, Ajit K. Dalal, A. Prakash, Y. S. Vagrecha, A. K. Srivastava, Anjum Sibia, 2002, Lifespan Development, in Introduction to Psychology, pp. 104-107, NCERT, India. 4. Paquette, D. and John Ryan. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems. http://pt3.nl.edu/paquetteryanwebquest.pdf. 28 Feb 2006. 5. Sugarman, L, 1986, Life Span Development, In Concepts, Theories, and Interventions, pp.145-146, Methuen, New York. 6. Dai Williams. Adult Life Events And The Transition Cycle. http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/pit1.htm/ Dai Williams. 28 Feb 2006. (from Hopson B. & Adams J. (1976) Transition: understanding and managing personal change. London, Martin Robertson.) 7. Dai Williams. Life Events and Career Change:Ttransition Psychology in Practice. In http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/intro.htm. 28 Feb 2006. 8. Templeton, R. Debra. How Displaced Female Textile Workers Make A Successful Transition To Skilled Employment. http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:z7gFG0jo2uoJ:www.coe.uga.edu/leap/adulted/pdf/templeton_debra_r_200405_edd.pdf+sugarman%27s++theory++lifespan++&hl=en&gl=in&ct=clnk&cd=5. 28 Feb 2006. Read More