Comprehensive Exam Review

Comprehensive Exam Review

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Human Growthand Development

Part 1

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Knowledge of human growth and development is essential for counselors because:

Counseling is based on the premise that given the opportunity, healthy human growth and development will occur naturally.

Therefore, the role of the counselor is to recognize healthy growth and development and to both facilitate and remove barriers to its occurrence.

Developmental Issues in Counseling

Thomas suggested that counselors use know-ledge of human growth and development to make decisions on the following issues:

Problem Identification

What is the client’s presenting problem and how common is it within the context of factors such as the client’s age, gender, and cultural background (i.e., life circumstance)?

What other problems or conditions are frequently linked to the client’s presenting problem when that problem appears in other persons in similar life circumstance?

How may the attitudes of social groups relevant to the client influence the choices and adjustment of persons similar to the client?

Choice of Counseling Interventions

How do the levels of physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development typical of the client’s life circumstance help to suggest appropriate interventions?

How well is counseling progressing compared to counseling for other persons in a similar life circumstance?

How well has the client’s problem been addressed as compared to resolutions for other clients in a similar life circumstance?

How can counseling best be terminated for a person with the client’s particular life circumstance?

Blocher used the term “developmental counseling” to suggest that the counseling relationship has two basic purposes:

To support, by restoring the client’s socio-emotional security sufficiently for the client to have energy for growth, and

To stimulate and motivate the client toward growth in desired directions.

Knowledge of human growth and development can be best understood in regard to

(b) specific theories and principles derived from that organization.

(a) the characteristics by which the pertinent knowledge of human development has been organized, and

There are few areas of knowledge that are as broad in scope as is human growth and development.

One way to facilitate comprehension of this broad area is to organize it along several dimensions.

The organizational dimensions to be used here include the following:

Unit of Coverage, such as individual, group, family, or societal development.

Span of Coverage, such as a limited age range, a specific stage of development, or across the life span.

Area(s) of Focus, such as physical, sexual, cognitive, emotional, social, career, moral, spiritual, ethnic identity, personality, or cultural development.

Specificity, such as applicable to a specific group of people or to all humanity.

Conception(s) of Causality, such as genetic determinants, learned behaviors, or environmental influences.

Course of Development, such as being viewed as a series of discrete stages, a focus on transitions, or a continuous process.

Source(s) of data, such as pathological, healthy, or optimally functioning specimens.

Aim of Formulation, such as descriptive, prescriptive, educational, or therapeutic.

Theoretical Interpretation of Issues, such as individual differences or normality-deviance differences.

Application for Counseling. For example, for a theory of human growth and development to be consistent with counseling premises concerning healthy development,

the theory must view the person’s internal drive as seeking growth rather than the reduction of discomfort, and

view the person as actively interacting with the environment rather than being passively shaped by it.

General Principles of Human Growth and Development

General Developmental Trends

Human physical development progresses:

Proximodistally, from the center of the body toward the extremities, and

Cephalocaudally, from the head downward.

Motor development progresses from mass action to differentiation. That is, from generalized, gross responses to specific, fine motor actions.

Lewin suggested that psychological development moves toward:

greater structure

greater differentiation

expanded time perception

better cognitive organization

more complex interrelationships among the parts of the personality, and

better ability to distinguish reality from fantasy.

Kimble suggested that:

in most developmental sequences, both learning and maturation contribute to behavior.

maturation lays the foundation upon which learning builds; one cannot teach an organism anything beyond the behavioral boundaries provided by maturation.

the more complex the behavior, the more it depends upon learning.

the more complex the organism, the larger the segment of its behavior that can be influenced by experience.

Principles ofLifespan Development

Kastenbaum suggested the following guidelines for understanding and learning knowledge of human growth and development:

Individual development should be studied in a biocultural context.

Development over time should be distinguish-ed from change over time.

Chronological age is not a sufficient index of developmental status.

The full range of lifespan developmental phenomena and the complex interactions of individual and environmental factors must be considered to understand human growth and development effectively.

Nature vs Nurture

Probably the longest standing issue in human growth and development is the relative contributions of heredity and environment in shaping personality and behavior.

Sophisticated theoretical propositions have been developed and extensive research has been conducted in the attempt to resolve this issue. However, it is unlikely it will ever be fully resolved.

Later factor analytic studies reduced these dimensions to five that have been proven to have a genetic basis: reactivity/arousal, sociability, negative emotionality, level of activity, and attention span, plus two other dimensions with probable genetic basis: adaptability and self-regulation.

Thomas and Chess identified nine innate, durable dimensions of temperament.

Neuroticism vs Emotional Stability

Extraversion (or Surgency)

Agreeableness vs Antagonism

Openness to Experience or Intellect, Imagination or Culture

Conscientiousness or Will to Achieve

Cross-cultural research demonstrates universality of five personality trait dimensions across cultural and language groups:

The universality of these dimensions suggests existence of a species-wide, biological basis for these traits.

However, it also has been argued that they merely reflect the shared experience of human existence.

Research comparing identical vs fraternal twins suggests that some traits are heavily determined by genetic factors.

Research also suggests that genetic factors account for approximately

40 - 50% of differences in cognitive skills,

30 - 40% of differences in temperament, and

20 - 30% of emotional characteristics.

However, rarely has it been suggested that genetic factors account for more than 50% of a human trait.

Research also suggests that most human traits are firmly established by age 30.

However, counseling and related research has shown that significant change (i.e., life coping skill) is possible across the lifespan.

Environmental factors also have been shown to heavily influence human behavior development.

Examples of environmental factors influencing individual behavior development include family violence, child abuse, parental attention and affection, education, peer pressure, media, cultural and sub-cultural norms, family belief systems, family size, community structure, and socioeconomic status.

Coping With Stressful Life Events

Holmes and Rahe identified common stressful life events among Americans. Some of the more stressful life events they found, presented in descending order of stressfulness, included:

death of a spousedivorceincarceration (jail/prison)death of a close family memberpersonal injury or illnessgetting married

being fired from a jobretirementpregnancydeath of a close friendforeclosure on a mortgage/loanson or daughter leaving homebeginning or ending schoolchange in residencechange in eating habitsgoing on vacation

The order varies across individuals as well as across cultural groups.

However, the ideas inherent in the list are useful for conceptualizing severity of stress in clients’ lives.

Personal resources, such as coping ability, a sense of personal coherence, and social competence, help to moderate reactions to life stressors.

Social resources, such as having a social network, availability of community institutions, and using cultural traditions to cope with stressful situations, also help to moderate reactions to life stressors.

Aging

People over age 65 are the fastest growing segment of the American population… and longevity (i.e., life expectancy) is increasing.

People over age 85 are the fastest growing segment of the over 65 population group.

It is now common to subdivide what were formerly known as the “elderly” into the “young old” (65 - 74), “middle old” (75 - 84), and the “oldest-old” (85 and above).

The number of Americans over age 65 has tripled since 1900 and now constitutes approximately 13% of the U.S. population.

It is estimated that persons over age 65 will constitute approximately 20% of the U.S. population by the year 2030.

Most older persons live independently, and only approximately 5% are in a “nursing home” at any given time.

Major, specific developmental issues in counseling older persons include (but are not limited to):

having meaning in lifehealth concernsfinancial concernsloss of spouse, family members, and friendsconfronting personal mortality

Polypharmacy (i.e., interaction of multiple, simultaneously administered medicines) is often a significant difficulty for older persons. Counselors should work closely with physicians who specialize in providing medical services to older persons to monitor this possibility.

Commonly used counseling interventions for older persons include life review counseling, enrollment in peer support groups, and encouragement of future-oriented commitments.

This concludes Part 1 of the presentation on

HUMAN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT