Psychosocial Development - Essay Example

Psychosocial Development Case Study Analysis - The Case of Marie Introduction According to Erick Erickson’s psychosocial development theory, a human being should undergo eight important stages of development from birth to adulthood. The stages follow each other as the individual develops physically and mentally. The rate at which each stage is succeeded by the other depends on the individual’s mentality and is influenced by their social lives. A skip or an unsuccessful experience in a specific stage out of the eight stages can be manifested in the adulthood stage. The eight stages that a developing human being undergoes also influence their personality development at each stage. In all the psychosocial development stages, there are different challenges that a developing human being faces. The response that they take when faced with the challenges is dependent on their personality and the character is carried forward to the subsequent development stages. It is therefore important that human beings’ psychosocial development trend be monitored by qualified counselors who understand the effects that an unsuccessful stage of development can have on someone in their later life. Humans who face challenges in different stages of development should therefore seek for professional help. All the stages of psychosocial development are very challenging to successfully go through but in most humans, the three most challenging stages are between 4-5years, 13-19 years and 65- death stages. People in these stages are more susceptible to emotional breakdowns due to varying reasons and experiences in their lives and this may cause very serious personality degradation. This paper focuses on Marie’s family case and the psychosocial development issues that are evident among some of the family members. Marie’s case Marie’s family members are in different stages of psychosocial development stages. Marie is 68 years old and therefore she is in the last stage of psychosocial development. Her two daughters are between 40-50 years old and are in the second last stage of development which comprises of individuals in the bracket of 25-64 years old. These are the caregivers in the society. Marie’s grandchildren are in the age bracket of 4-5 years and in their third stage of psychosocial development (Stevens, 1983). The family members who are experiencing psychosocial crisis that is involved with their current stage of development are Marie, her daughter Lisa and one of Lisa’s 4 years old sons. Their individual social challenges are influenced by their immediate environmental factors and the social setup they are living in. Each one of them is facing a different challenge and while Marie is wise and can endure a lot, her daughter Lisa and her child need immediate therapy and counseling. Maries also needs to be given moral support to cope with her situation. Their problems are related to counseling in that they need psychological help to deal with the psychosocial crisis that they are facing (Stevens, 1983). The psychosocial crisis present in Lisa’s son is initiative versus guilt. In the 4-5 years stage, the child is learning to cope with the world and they get acquainted with the basic rules of life. The children start learning how to speak with ease and their social skills are growing. They star experiencing new emotions such as guilt as their conscience takes over their emotions. The children at this stage are likely to engage in risky decision making, mostly taking irrational initiatives that may lead them to get into trouble with their care givers (Stevens, 1983). The whole stage is a learning stage where the child learns through experience. Frustrations may cause bad behavior among children in this stage of development. They may take to aggression and assertive behavior to their parents just as Lisa’s child is portraying. The children may also become bothersome and lazy in their school work. The remedy is for a counselor to attend to the child and identify the cause of the frustration then prescribe a working plan. The psychosocial crisis that Lisa is going through is being generativist versus stagnation. Lisa is frustrated by her inability to feel a sense of being generativist (Slater, 2003). She lacks a companion in her life in raising her children and is therefore under constant pressure. She is struggling with her children and needs help to raise them. Her frustration is further fueled by her painful injury that may be a contributing factor to her bad emotions causing her to shout at her kids. Lisa looks up to her mother for support with the children. Her mother is also emotionally stressed by the children and is also unable to deal with them. The feeling of helplessness that Lisa has makes her act the way she does. She needs to make a purposeful change in her life that brings change to her kids’ behavior and to help her mother. She needs to feel useful in the society. Her case highlights the cognitive theory whereby she is desperate to do what the society expects of her thus she is frustrated when she fails. Marie’s case of psychosocial crisis is ego integrity versus despair. Marie’s life is low and less productive in the society as compared to her past life. She is retired and can barely get involved in any productive work that she used to undertake in her younger years. Her life has been sustaining to her but she still feels like she didn’t live to her dreams. She experiences nostalgia when she focuses on her past, especially her happy life with her deceased husband and her best friend. Living with her grand children stresses her because she can no longer take care of them as required. She is weak and her leg is in constant pain (Stevens, 1983). Marie knows that she has a short time to live and she is scared and in despair. The younger people bring envy to her when she imagines they have a longer time to live. All these negative emotions have altered her personality as she gets older. What she needs is to get rid of the despair by looking at the many accomplishments she has made in her life and celebrate her good life instead. According to the dispositional theory, an individual’s personality in late adulthood is influenced by their environment and the people he socializes with (Stevens, 1983). Marie’s daughter Toni is self accomplished and her life is in order. She has a sense of being generativists and she is the ideal human at her psychosocial development stage. She has a stable family and she is able to help her mother and give her emotional support. Lisa may be envying her sisters life and that might add to her frustration. Toni is understanding and practices her role as a caregiver quite efficiently. Her child is well raised and is not undergoing any psychosocial crisis (Slater, 2003). Challenges to wellness and Resiliency Resilience is the ability to rebound from adversities in the society in a quest to regain self well being. The society is full of adversities and it requires an individual to practice resilience in order to be happy throughout all stages of life. However, there are certain community and cultural groups’ requirements on an individual that hinder resilience, subsequently affecting well being. Individuals are forced to assume certain lifestyles or to engage in certain practices that only jeopardize their well being (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). Culturally, a family like the one in Marie’s case is viewed as a dysfunctional family. This would be particularly true when focusing at Lisa and her family. The community would blame Lisa for the bad behavior being portrayed by her child. She would also be judged for not being able to tend to her children and for seeking help from her mother to cater to the kids while she knows that her mother is not in a state to take care of the children. In fact Lisa should be providing support to her mother instead. They are both suffering from pain but Marie is able to deal with the pain better than Lisa who is expected to be stronger and to be more enduring. This makes Marie more stressed up (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). The society has neglected the elderly and this has jeopardized their wellness. Marie is a good example of a neglected elderly person. Her life was engulfed by loneliness and she stays in solitude most of the times. This has made her unhappy and her self esteem has been lowered since the society has no room for the unproductive people. Socialization has been limited to the production areas. Marie had very many friends when she was running her store but after retiring, she lost contact with her social life and her children had to step in and bring her close to them. Her grandchildren are her only frequent visitors (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). Being pushed to do something that one does not enjoy is also a big challenge to wellness and resilience. Even counselors do not like taking up assignments that are too challenging and could lead to incompetence due to their emotional manipulability. However, the society does not understand this and people are expected to undertake certain tasks without complain. For instance, Marie is expected to take care of her grand children despite the fact that they stress her. She is culturally not supposed to complain about it since the human culture expects that grandparents are the best company for their grandchildren. This hinders her from achieving self well being (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). Different cultures have different resilience models that they apply to overcome adversities. Psychologically, seeking for therapy sessions with a qualified physician is the most effective way of overcoming adversities. This is because the professionals know exactly how to help the victims in the shortest time possible. However, in today’s world, challenges like stigmatization which occur when the community learns that someone is attending therapy sessions discourages people to seek for help. This poses a great challenge to wellness in the world today since majority of the people in the communities believe that seeing a psychologist means one is mentally impaired. This highlights the cognitive behavior theory that says that an individual’s expectation of the society can determine their behavior. People expect the society to stigmatize them if they seek for therapy thus they opt not to (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). Areas of Strength for wellness and resiliency Numerous societies and cultural groups have undergone many adversities but have transformed their resilience to achieve well being. This is done from the family level where members of a family help each other to overcome the emotional distress. Attending therapy sessions is common in many cultures whereby all the members of the family support the affected person. Family care is also very common. Marie’s children clearly paint such a picture when they bring their mother closer to them so that they can give her the support she needs after being left along following the death of her husband and her best friend. Her daughter Toni constantly gives her emotional support in a bid to help her overcome this adversity and regain wellness (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). Different communities have different methods of ensuring resilience and wellness of the different people in the community. The whole model is based on the various stages of psychosocial development stages in most communities currently. Children have been provided with recreational facilities where they go to have fun and to exercise simultaneously. Such places are good for the children in the 4-5 years development stage since they learn a lot as they have fun. Lisa should consider taking her children for fun days in such facilities (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). There are also social facilities made for the purpose of the young adults where they mingle and have fun as they unwind to forget their adversities. Long term care facilities are also available for the elderly where nurses take care of the elderly people’s needs. There are special programs that are provided in the facilities that ensure that the clients’ wellness is guaranteed. Therapy sessions are also provided. Marie should consider enrolling to such a facility where she can mingle with people in her age group too (Kirmayer, Sehdey, Whitley, Dandeneau & Isaac, 2009). Influence of Culture on Psychosocial Development Cultural values and beliefs can directly influence psychosocial development. Cultural values influence temperament in human beings. The influence is evident among the children in the learning stage of psychosocial development. According to Skinner’s behavior theory, humans, especially children learn their behavior from observation. If they are raised in a culture where people freely respond to all issues through aggressive measures, they are also likely to assume such behavior independently (Pachter & Harwood, 1996). Psychosocial development values that are learnt in the initial stages of development are carried forward to the subsequent stages; therefore, a behavior that is influenced by culture in the early stage may be portrayed even in the later stages. For instance, in Marie’s case, her childhood experiences were in a culture of hardworking independent people. She learnt how to be independent and how to burn the midnight oil and even now at her late adulthood stage she still tries hard to be independent Conclusion Life is lived in stages and every stage has its challenges. The essence of living is to be able to look back while in the last stage and be contented with what you have made out of your life. Nobody can achieve perfection in life. Psychosocial development challenges catch up with ever body at one time or the other over their life time. How they overcome the challenges is the main issue. Such method of dealing with the psychosocial crises that are present in every stage of human development can influence the course that an individual’s life takes after the challenge. It is important that individuals be resilient in order to overcome life’s inevitable adversities. The sense of wellness should be experienced by individuals at all stages of life. People should go for psychological counseling whenever they are faced with psychosocial crisis. Counselors have the knowledge on the underlying causes of such crises and the possible solutions that can be applied for a successful transition to the next stage in life. This will ensure that individuals live a fulfilling life that guarantees their wellness and builds positive personalities. References Kirmayer, Laurence J., Sehdev, Megha., Whitley, Rob., Dandeneau, Stephane F. & Isaac, Colette. (2009). Community Resilience: Models, Metaphorrs and Measures. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 1(1), 62-103. Pachter L. M. & Harwood R. L. (1996). Culture and child behavior and psychosocial development. Pub Med. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8783068 Slater, Charles L. (2003). Generativity versus stagnation: An elaboration of Eriksson’s adult stage of human development. Journal of Adult Development, 10(1), 53–65. Stevens, Richard. (1983). Erik Eriksson: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin's. Read More