How an Understanding of Human Growth and Development Can Assist the Counsellor

Lifespan development is essential, as it is the changes that happen to us throughout a person’s lifespan. Our development occurs at ages stages where we develop from infancy till death. This essay will contain my life story to display the domains in 5 age stages in my lifespan development. The domains I will be exploring is in this essay is physical, emotional, cognitive, social, cultural and moral domain. The influence of biological and environmental play a significant role in my development. Development is influenced by nature or nurture and its affect will occur throughout lifespan. The changes that occur during development have stage. Each theorists has stages of development where they display the changes. This essay will explore my

How does an infant develop into an adult? The answer is not as obvious as it seems. There are a variety of factors that contribute to human development. A person not only grows physically but also cognitively and socio-emotionally. This paper will explain two theories; one cognitive and one socio-emotional; about human development. The two theories will be described, compared, contrasted and individually evaluated based on the strong points and limitations.

Counselling and psychotherapeutic theory is a way of understanding human development and experiences in relation to the environment. Each theory is based on a set of principles and concepts that have been derived from observable behaviour. However, each theory has identified limitations and no single theory is appropriate for all clients or all presenting issues.

Kraus, K. L. (2008). Lenses: Applying Lifespan Development Theories in Counseling. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

This essay will demonstrate my understanding of developments which occur at each stage of an individual's life cycle. I will relate these developments to two relevant psychological theories and discuss how an individual's needs must be met to enable them to develop.

This paper serves to apply the knowledge learned throughout the course, COUN 502, to the development and growth in my lifespan. I will aim to demonstrate a working knowledge of the theories, terminology, and concepts of human growth and development. I will show how these disciplines apply to my own life experiences and how I did throughout my key life events, through the use of empirical studies.

During our lives, everyone goes through a change and evolves in different ways. However, in the field of psychology as far as development, the process of growing and maturing has been previously linked only with childhood. One of the first theorists Erik Erickson felt that development continues throughout life. Erickson believes that each stage in life resembles to specific opportunities that the society might have. Erickson’s theory defines the impact of social involvement across the entire lifespan. Each stage of Erikson’s stages is unique in their own way. Erikson decided to present eight different stages of the psychosocial crisis for almost each age group.

Erikson’s (1968, 1980, 1982) psychosocial stages of development provide a framework for the different stages of development throughout the human lifespan. These stages of development begin at birth and continue until death, and separate the lifespan into eight stages based on chronological age. Within these eight different aging stages are corresponding psychosocial stages. Each of these psychosocial stages represent a conflict between two characteristics of development for that particular time period in a person’s life.

For ease of review in discussing the developmental theorists and their theories of human development I have subdivided each theorist into their respective schools of psychology. These schools include the psychoanalytic school, behavioral school, humanistic school, cognitive school, and the individual schools of psychology. Each developmental theorist holds their own unique ideas and theories about various components of human development. I will be discussing the contributions of each of these theorists.

This stage of development occurs between the ages of 18 to 35. This is the stage where we begin to become more intimate with others, leading towards long term commitment such as marriage and families. If this stage is completed successfully we can experience intimacy on a deep level. If not isolation and distance from others may

Genital Stage- Development of a mature self with the ability to form relationships (Wilkinson & Treas, 2016).

Through the lessons learned during the previous stages, adolescents direct their sexual urges onto opposite sex peers, with the primary focus of pleasure are the genitals. Interest in the welfare of others grows during this stage as opposed to the earlier stages where the focus was solely on individual needs. It is also the time when the individual tries to come to terms with unresolved residues of the early childhood. Although the focus is again on the genitals, within this stage the energy is expressed with adult sexuality. While in the phallic stage gratification is linked with satisfaction of the primary drives, the ego in the genital stage is well-developed, and so uses secondary process thinking, which allows symbolic gratification. The symbolic gratification may include the formation of love relationships and families, or acceptance of responsibilities associated with adulthood.

The first stage is trust vs mistrust (0-1). In this stage, the infant emphasizes the affection and nourishment. If the needs are met, it will develop trust. The second stage is autonomy vs shame and doubt (1-3). In the stage, the children begin to do something independently, such as dressing. The third stage is initiative vs guilt (3-6). In the stage, children take initiative on some activities (OpenStax College, 2015). The fourth stage is industry vs inferiority (7-11). In this stage, children become confident if they are competent and may feel inferior if not. The fifth stage is identity vs confusion (12-18). During the stage, teenagers begin to develop their identity and roles and their opinion about themselves and the world changes a lot. The sixth stage is intimacy vs isolation (19-29). In this stage, people fall in love with others and engage in marriage. The seventh stage is generativity vs stagnation (30-64). In this stage, people have their own families and children and make contributions to the society. The last stage is integrity vs despair (65-). In this stage, people retire from work and reflect on their life and

The development of a child is viewed from a number of different perspectives by several developmental theorists. While some say that development continues throughout the life, others would hold an opinion that children stop to develop as soon as they mature. Therefore, lifespan developmental theorists have focused on a number of areas while studying the development of an individual. Some of these areas include cognitions, social development, sexual development, moral development and more. Each of these theories is important in order to completely analyze the process whereby which a child matures and transitions into an adult.

The life span perspective in Paul Baltes ' view is the "study of constancy and change in behaviour throughout the life course from conception to death.” (Baltes, 1987, p.611). Being a development psychologist, Baltes constructed seven frameworks that shows that development is multi directional, which means different processes of change all through the lifespan. Secondly, development is multiply influenced by a person 's development, an effect brought about from both biological and environmental factors. Thirdly, understanding development requires multiple disciplines, development that analyse in all directions so that it can be understood through many perspectives