Comprehensive
Exam Review
Click the LEFT mouse key ONCE to continue
Human Growth
and Development
Part 1
Click the LEFT mouse key ONCE to continue
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 knowledge 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 socioemotional 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
(a) the characteristics by which the
pertinent knowledge of human development
has been organized, and
(b) specific theories and principles derived
from that organization.
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 of
Lifespan 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 distinguished 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.
Thomas and Chess identified nine innate,
durable dimensions of temperament.
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.
Cross-cultural research demonstrates
universality of five personality trait dimensions
across cultural and language groups:
Neuroticism vs Emotional Stability
Extraversion (or Surgency)
Agreeableness vs Antagonism
Openness to Experience or Intellect,
Imagination or Culture
Conscientiousness or Will to Achieve
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 spouse
divorce
incarceration (jail/prison)
death of a close family member
personal injury or illness
getting married
being fired from a job
retirement
pregnancy
death of a close friend
foreclosure on a mortgage/loan
son or daughter leaving home
beginning or ending school
change in residence
change in eating habits
going 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.
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).
People over age 85 are the fastest growing
segment of the over 65 population group.
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 life
health concerns
financial concerns
loss of spouse, family members, and friends
confronting 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