Developmental Psychology - Case Study Example

Writer’s name] [Professor’s name] [Course title] [Date] Developmental Psychology Introduction Adulthood and aging is mid-life transition that happens to individuals typically ranging from thirties to late fifties. It is a natural process and is normal part of maturing. These experiences at mid-life can occur naturally or result from some significant changes that can inevitably occur at some point in time. Accepting such changes may be extremely difficulty, however when it is associated with mid-life transition, it can be extremely con fusing for people. often middle age is a time during which adjustment and efforts to reprise life structures with an eye for revision tend to occur (Huyck, p390). This paper is based on the analysis of a given case study. In order to analyze the case Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Levinson theory of the Seasons of Life shall be used. Analysis of the case The analysis of this case shall be carried out by the help of Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Levinson theory of the Seasons of Life, as both theories highlight mid life transitions. Erickson‘s Model Cheryl ‘s case follows under stage seven of Erikson’s psychosocial theory, according to Newman & Newman (1991) this stage begins around age 35 and continues through age 65, with the conflict generativity versus stagnation. . This stage may also involve role confusion, like what Cheryl felt. This conflict arises when the environment around a person evolves and makes new demands. Then the person has to make a choice between two ways, either to adapt or not to adapt to it. It is only when these crisis are resolved, a change in personality occurs and a person is prepared to move to the next stage of human development (Shultz & Shultz p15). Cheryl too has to get through a conflict, but she choose to adapt to the new demands and she also choose to develop a career for self. And thus in this way she resolved her crisis. All of Erickson's other stages leading to adulthood involve individual rather than relational issues" autonomy vs. shame and doubt initiative vs. guilt and identity vs. role confusion. Identity is defined as having a sense of self apart from one's own family. Thus as per case study Cheryl was facing a lot of interpersonal issues regarding herself and her present life. She was facing feeling like uncertainty, shame, inferiority and role confusion. All these feeling indicate failure so in short as per Erickson’s theory most female sin stage seven feel like this, so Cheryl was having a feeling of failure. Cheryl‘s case may be analyzed by Erikson's basic point of view regarding individual is stage seven of their life, two important things may be highlighted: (1) as an individual goes through life his world also grows larger (2) the feeling of failure increases. Whilst the first point is quite clear, the second point is usually apparent in many cases like Cheryl’s who have had to deal with terrible circumstances in their past. Thus they are not capable of adapting to later stages as easily as someone who has had fewer problems in the past. According to Baltes (1987) Strength to carry on in this stage often comes from the love of people around the individual which in Erikson ‘s theory is known as generativity, so while Cheryl in this stage as per Erickson she will start having a feeling of inactivity and emptiness. Cheryl is facing allot of huge due to the fact that all her children have grown up, now she is going through mid-life crisis. She is trying to struggle with her need to find purposes to her life, like get a good job. If she doesn’t then she will become stagnate in life. Erikson strongly believed that an individuals personality can and is effected by experiences throughout childhood and adolescent and then into adulthood. This is exactly what happened to Cheryl in the case study, she become pregnant at small age, and faced difficulties throughout her relations with her boyfriend she was even kicked out of her home. According to Erikson (1968) key element stages has both a positive and negative region. In a healthy situation the positive region will dominate. However in situation like Cheryl’s the negative region is bound to dominate, and thus it will give her a feeling of nothingness. Erikson’s notion notably included cultural and social point of view; this helped Erikson’s eight stages of theory develop into a powerful representation. Keeping this in mind so when Cheryl saw her friends with careers she would be socially unaccepted if she did not do anything about it. Every stage consists of a conflict between two opposite emotional forces. every one of the crisis stages is associated to the stage of life related with it. When individuals go through all the stages successfully they achieve a healthy balance between two opposing forces. According to Erickson (1968) If an individual does not pass through a stage successfully, in this case they develop a tendency related to the opposing force which then becomes a behavioural tendency. As per this case study it may be noted that the subject did not pass through the stage of identity versus role confusion which represents the adolescent stage successfully. As when Cheryl was young she was confused between her identity as a student or a lover, she wasted her life by giving birth to a baby for man who was worthless. She lost her family, life and education due to this confusing state. Cheryl‘s case is an ideal example of how Erickson’s theory emphasis on why individuals who have struggled with the healthy completion of early phases have so many difficulties when the same issue/situation reoccurs in adulthood Levinson’s theory Cheryl‘s case can also be analyzed by Levinson theory of the Seasons of Life. According to Roberts and Newton (1987) Even his model highlights mid-life transition and how people need to develop and grow themselves in that time of life. The reason why this is an ideal theory for this case study is that it also like Erickson’s theory describes the mid-life transition at the age of 30. It also describes how career development becomes a necessity at this age. His models’ third stage describes Cheryl‘s case more appropriately. According to Levinson (1996) this stage is divided into 2 parts, it is known as the Age 30 transition. With reference to this stage in Cheryl ‘s case, she like Levinson describes at the age of 30 she started to focus on her past efforts and wanted to plan for a successful future career. At the same time she was also planning a good future for her family. She had started to compare her past to her present and thus she analyzed the fact that she needed a career. As per Levinson as this stage is the Age 30 transition it gives a second chance to people to overcome their mistakes and weakness which they had earlier in their life (Schai , p310). Thus they then get a chance to build a new base for a strong and successful life. Thus per the case study Cheryl felt the same way and thus took on the opportunity to set a career for herself. She followed exactly what Levinson had described in his theory. As per the case study Levinson’s theory portrayed Cheryl’s life perfectly. After she passed through the first stage, she went to the second part. In the second part this particular period “to settle down” becomes opportunity for the individual. Thus the second part of this stage the individual feels a need to make a position for themselves in society, it can be in terms of career or settling down and trusting a family, which ever they feel is the most important to them at that point. Here, it can be said that Cheryl felt the need to make a position in society for herself by developing a career, thus she persuaded this goal. The fact that Cheryl’s entire past life was spent in caring for her family and an earlier years were spent with a bad relationship along with early pregnancy. Like most teenage mothers her life too was interrupted with pregnancy and the later years were spent in caring for the child, marriage and having more children (Orstein and Isabella, p3). As per Levinson’s age 30 transition stage in cases like this one mostly women feel the urge to develop their career as they think that this the only way they may be able to develop their own identity in society. Cheryl felt that she needed a career as all her friends and people around her had developed their career, many had had different priorities as they had their won busy timetable and could not spend time with Cheryl. This made her feel that she also needed a career in order to fill up her felling nothingness. According to Levinson the age 30 transition, takes place later as they are extremely busy with caring for their family. This is also most likely due to the fact that they have responsibilities of mother hood on their shoulders (Orstein and Isabella, p18). In the same way, Cheryl too felt the need to develop a career later on in life. Women like Cheryl tend to be more effected by this stage as they have more of a family role, plus their life is often interrupted by pregnancies. This interferes in their growth and development for an individual identity. How Cheryl felt can be described by Levinson’s theory and midlife transitions work as it highlights how the main task of each stable stage is to develop life structure, make important choices, and build a structure around the selected choices and to archive his goals while remaining in the structure.  This would be something stressful like it was for Cheryl.  Such a stage eliminates the present life structures. however, it gives a chance to develop anew one, Cheryl’s case is an ideal example of this as she choose to develop her career as anew structure thus eliminate the old one of only looking after her family .  According to Baltes (1987) the key responsibilities of all transition periods are to analyze and re-evaluate the present structure, to search for different opportunities for change in the individual’s life, and to move toward a obligation to vital alternatives that form a base for a stable and happy life. Because Cheryl is in this stage of in which she has been forced to thing about other alternatives, it would appear that she may begin to revaluate her current views of life. According to Levinson (1996), a developmental psychologist, individuals in the young adult stage must accomplish certain tasks. These tasks include: getting started in an occupation; selecting and courting a mate; learning to live contentedly with one’s partner; starting a family and becoming a parent; assuming the responsibilities of managing a home; assuming civic responsibilities; finding a congenial social group (Nevid & Rathus, p513). Using this theory one could conduct that Cheryl‘s lack of meeting each of these tasks could be a source of much of her stress With Cheryl, there are a variety of situations influencing her problems. Some of the most influential circumstances however, would more than likely be focused around the fact that is wants to develop her own career. She knows that she has responsibilities towards her children and husband; she knows that her husband supports her. Yet she feels In the past Cheryl personality was only based on keeping her family happy, thus she limited herself. Cheryl‘s continuous desire to be approved by her friends and herself have driven towards developing her career. As in the beginning she only wanted to keep every one happy she used to use denial so that she would not feel that she was wasting her life. However, when she entered the age 30 transition period she felt like she was nothing, her defence mechanism of denial had worn out. Levinson highlighted the psychoanalytic theory; this too gives a clear understating of Cheryl’s case. People’s identities basically originate from people, places, and things which have a central role in their lives (Schaie, p212). Thus the interactions and the amount of time spent with these people may affect their lives. However when a certain change takes place all the relations with people start to weaken and a sense of helplessness and feeling of emptiness occurs. This is what happened to Cheryl when she felt that she had been left behind friends. Conclusion The above given theories of Erickson and Levinson gives a complete picture of what Cheryl must have gone through. As per case study she felt that she needed to develop a career. This would be the only way to resolve her conflict and crisis in her life. She had turned 30 and as per both the above mentioned theories her feeling of emptiness was something which she was bound to feel. Since she had spent half her life having a bad relationship with her boyfriend, getting pregnant, being thrown out of her house and caring for new family and husband. Even though now hose had a stable family life she felt the need to have a career. Thus as per both theories her choice to develop their career was a correct. Work cited Huyck, Margaret H. Middle Age. Academic American Encyclopedia, 13, (1993), 390-391. Newman, B., & Newman, P. Development through life: A psychosocial approach (5th ed.) Palisades, CA: Brooks-Cole. (1991) Schultz D.P. & Schultz S.E. A History of Modern Psychology. Orlando, FL: Harcourt-Brace. (1987) p 15 Baltes, P. B. "Theoretical Propositions of Life-Span Developmental Psychology: On the Dynamics Between Growth and Decline." Developmental Psychology 23 (1987) 611–626. Erikson, E. H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton, (1968). Roberts P and Newton PM Levinsonian studies of women's adult development. Psychology and Aging 2: (1987) 154-163 Levinson DJ The season's of a woman's life. New York: Knopf. (1996) Schaie, K. W. The course of adult intellectual development. American Psychologist, 49 (4), (1994)304-313. S. Ornstein and L. Isabella. Age vs. stage models of career attitudes of women: A partial replication and extension. Journal of Vocational Behavior 36 (1990) p1-19 Nevid, J.S., & Rathus, S.A. Psychology and the challenges of life: Adjustment in the new millennium (9 th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons (2005) p513 Read More

Thus they are not capable of adapting to later stages as easily as someone who has had fewer problems in the past. According to Baltes (1987) Strength to carry on in this stage often comes from the love of people around the individual which in Erikson ‘s theory is known as generativity, so while Cheryl in this stage as per Erickson she will start having a feeling of inactivity and emptiness. Cheryl is facing allot of huge due to the fact that all her children have grown up, now she is going through mid-life crisis.

She is trying to struggle with her need to find purposes to her life, like get a good job. If she doesn’t then she will become stagnate in life. Erikson strongly believed that an individuals personality can and is effected by experiences throughout childhood and adolescent and then into adulthood. This is exactly what happened to Cheryl in the case study, she become pregnant at small age, and faced difficulties throughout her relations with her boyfriend she was even kicked out of her home.

According to Erikson (1968) key element stages has both a positive and negative region. In a healthy situation the positive region will dominate. However in situation like Cheryl’s the negative region is bound to dominate, and thus it will give her a feeling of nothingness. Erikson’s notion notably included cultural and social point of view; this helped Erikson’s eight stages of theory develop into a powerful representation. Keeping this in mind so when Cheryl saw her friends with careers she would be socially unaccepted if she did not do anything about it.

Every stage consists of a conflict between two opposite emotional forces. every one of the crisis stages is associated to the stage of life related with it. When individuals go through all the stages successfully they achieve a healthy balance between two opposing forces. According to Erickson (1968) If an individual does not pass through a stage successfully, in this case they develop a tendency related to the opposing force which then becomes a behavioural tendency. As per this case study it may be noted that the subject did not pass through the stage of identity versus role confusion which represents the adolescent stage successfully.

As when Cheryl was young she was confused between her identity as a student or a lover, she wasted her life by giving birth to a baby for man who was worthless. She lost her family, life and education due to this confusing state. Cheryl‘s case is an ideal example of how Erickson’s theory emphasis on why individuals who have struggled with the healthy completion of early phases have so many difficulties when the same issue/situation reoccurs in adulthood Levinson’s theory Cheryl‘s case can also be analyzed by Levinson theory of the Seasons of Life.

According to Roberts and Newton (1987) Even his model highlights mid-life transition and how people need to develop and grow themselves in that time of life. The reason why this is an ideal theory for this case study is that it also like Erickson’s theory describes the mid-life transition at the age of 30. It also describes how career development becomes a necessity at this age. His models’ third stage describes Cheryl‘s case more appropriately. According to Levinson (1996) this stage is divided into 2 parts, it is known as the Age 30 transition.

With reference to this stage in Cheryl ‘s case, she like Levinson describes at the age of 30 she started to focus on her past efforts and wanted to plan for a successful future career. At the same time she was also planning a good future for her family. She had started to compare her past to her present and thus she analyzed the fact that she needed a career. As per Levinson as this stage is the Age 30 transition it gives a second chance to people to overcome their mistakes and weakness which they had earlier in their life (Schai , p310).

Thus they then get a chance to build a new base for a strong and successful life.

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