Psychological Birth and the Developing Child

The importance of the psychological birth of the infant is inherent in the childhood surroundings of a person. Their caretakers, or lack thereof, the environment in which they mature, and the people that they share a sort of bond with all have a considerably and a weighty influence on the direction children’s development takes. This influence can be interpreted in a number ways. For example, if a baby begins their development in a hostile or otherwise endangering environment, the likelihood of them displaying traits linked to hostility increases—the baby’s brain is extremely receptive to behaviors of any kind.

Mahler suggests that babies go through these six developing stages: autistic, meaning that the baby needs to develop homeostasis with their environment; symbiotic, learning an initial awareness of their caretaker but still regarding them as more or less indifferent; differentiation, scrutinizing and articulating the concept of what is and what is not a caretaker facilitates the development of stranger anxiety as they become more intimate with the caretaker; practicing, which is the point where the baby’s comfort transforms the caretaker as a kind of home-base in regards to exploring their environment and begin to experience separation anxiety; reproachment, which is essentially when the baby begins to develop autonomy; then lastly, object constancy—babies understand that their caretaker is not an indifferent entity but one that the baby can rely on and be confident in their return, then meaning that they are able to handle their separation anxiety. Mahler’s theory is significant in helping with understanding personality theory as it created the foundation of developmental theories used today. Her theory essentially established that babies are in fact intelligent to some degree as opposed to incapable of using their brain.

Erik Erikson expanded on Freud’s theory though he arrived at a different conclusion. Erikson explained that the personality is shaped by nature and culture, society, and history as opposed to sexuality. Similarly to Freud, though, Erikson detailed the steps of development in terms that sit parallel to one another: trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, identity versus confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and integrity versus despair. These developmental steps can be described on a scale of competency. This meaning, applied as such, quantifies their skill level in regards to one of the given steps. These developmental stages cannot be skipped. If they are, the given step’s ability is encroached. If the ‘learning process’ is interrupted there will be long-term inhibitions for individual development. Erikson also suggests that, through these steps, the ego’s development is encouraged by socialization. 

For example, consider the dichotomy between autonomy and doubt: if a sense of autonomic ability and confidence is not fostered in a child, they will grow to feel incapable of doing anything without the assistance of another. Because each of the developmental steps relies on the previous, that feeling of incapableness will hinder the individual’s ability to develop a sense of initiative. If they feel unable to do anything without someone else guiding them, they will most likely feel despondent in regards to taking any kind of action because there could be a growing and inherent hopelessness about the success of any particular action as they might feel just completely incapable of performing to any level of satisfaction without a constant watch or encouragement that can correct their mistakes, of which they most likely feel there will be many. The stages work something like dominoes—they occur one after the other and if one domino happens to still stand, the process is not yet complete. 

The most important aspects of  “The Moral Life of Babies” and “Bringing up Baby” were that babies have some basic sense of morality and that attachment theory was a reductionist answer to complex questions and that a variety of temperamental biases influence child development, along with highlighting the power and danger of identification. “The Moral Life of Babies” defined the aspects of, appropriately, morality whereas “Bringing up Baby” seemed more focused on the factors independent of caregiving influencing personality development. To a degree, each article helped to define aspects of personality and I found that I mostly agreed with both Paul Bloom and Jerome Kagan. While Bloom confesses that babies might not fully understand the nuances of morality, they have the general framework of it. The most important point of this framework is that babies see the dichotomy between helping and hurting—that moral action matters to them on some level. From the baby’s observation of the puppets, they seemingly realize the dichotomy of good and bad and respond positively to the helper character whilst simultaneously being repulsed by the offending character.

Considering that Kagan’s primary point in “Bringing up Baby” is that the mother’s sensitivity towards the child may not be as prevalent as attachment theory would have one believe, the reader is left to consider the effects of outside factors such as culture and social class, namely. Kagan also criticizes attachment theory as appealing to a society that found traditionalism and the familial status quo preferable. At this point, I disagree. While this may have been true to some degree, I find the quality of infanthood establishes the foundation for the rest of the child’s life and has long lasting if not permanent effects on their personality and its development. While temperamental biases may work congruously with attachment, neither of them does so independently. 

Bandura suggested that people could learn behaviors through observation. Children, in particular, could learn and imitate the behaviors they observe in others and, most notably, these learned behaviors do not exactly require reinforcement. The learning that occurs through observation is demonstrated through modeling. The model itself, however, can be a variety of different sources—a live model, meaning that individual is performing a certain behavior; a verbal model, which is a description of a behavior; or a symbolic model, which consists of behaviors exhibited by real or fictional characters depicted in various media. Modeling can be due to the two parties being similar, meaning that the person learning has some sort of affinity with the person that he or she is learning from, one party thinking that acting out a certain behavior will be to their benefit, or if the person emulating the behavior prefer the structure of a modeled behavior and lack the initiative for him or herself. The ease of learning from modeling is facilitated by attention processes, retention processes, motor production processes, and motivational processes: attention processes are affected by individual characteristics such as interests, wants or needs, their relationship to the model, or the behavior at hand; retention processes are influenced by the given behavior or instructions, whereas motor production processes and motivational processes influence the application of individual values into behaviors into appropriate actions and likelihood of behaving in a certain way should the behavior in question have positive results.

Triadic reciprocal is the theory that people are influenced by behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors. These factors rely on each other and work in lockstep. Instead of the self as an entity that makes decisions, Bandura suggested that the self is a system composed by the triadic reciprocal. 

Rogers’ approach was essentially that intelligence or knowledge were not the keys to problem solving. If the question was once “how can I change this person,” it then became “how can my relationship with this person help them discover themselves.” His approach was the more humanistic person-centered therapy. Throughout the article, Rogers details the benefits of empathy and understanding; that to behave like someone he was not did not ultimately help the growth of relationships. Through this lesson of self-acceptance and the acceptance of others, he learned that this openness was helpful. Fostering a healthy relationship with clients and being open to their situation provided clients with the tools to rediscover their direction and fix themselves—and Rogers himself found that accepting and understanding the situations of others encouraged him to step away from the situation at hand and not rush in to fix everything for them.

With this control being firmly placed in the hand in the client, this form of therapy promotes the development of a healthier sense of self. The humanistic approach also makes a point of considering humankind to generally favor goodness—incorporating creativity, free will, and potential as aspects of living to be cultivated and establish an ‘ideal’ self by introducing positivity and other beneficial experiences to him or herself. Ultimately, approaching a client as a friend opens up an entirely new avenue of discussion that may reveal understanding that otherwise would have remained hidden to the practitioner. On the other hand, it is not a therapy that everyone might desire. While the feeling of friendship can certainly be appreciated, there are certain circumstances where this would no longer be entirely helpful or relevant. This humanistic approach seemingly believes that everyone is granted with free will with absolution and can eventually take control of everything they do, which is not necessarily a universal truth. 

Existentialism is a philosophical belief that thought begins with the individual, yet not only the process of thought—the essential quintessence of the human individual. In a word, this philosophy seeks meaning that it may ascribe meaning to individual life. Above all else, when entrenched in a mire of absurdity, existentialism attempts to make it clear that a person is a person, and not the roles, labels, or other preconceptions he or she might assume through the course of life. The human predicament, appropriately, is based in the absurdity of life and the near-prophetic insight that humankind has into life itself and every part of it, as if it were an immensely elaborate joke. Therein lies the significance of the predicament—as creatures that are privy to the architecture of existence, the potentiality of hardship and suffering, and an inevitable end to everything—humans are rewarded, or punished, with an uncomfortable prescience. Ultimately, a longing to fix past mistakes encourages depression while a fear of the future will promote anxiety. The question, then, is how do they cope with the understandable depression and anxiety? 

Existential therapy focuses on the tensions of human life that manifest in an array of universal givens: the inevitability of death, the responsibility of free will, and the confrontation with meaninglessness that existentialism provides. Anxiety affects development insofar that it can eventually translate into powerlessness and thus a lack of initiative or feelings of incapability. Should an existentialist completely reject all moral values and walk a path of nihilism, this will very possibly influence his or her behaviors and actions. Counseling would most likely be tailored to the human experience of freedom of choice in efforts to ease the anxiety of choice that individuals might be burdened with and to embrace the freedom they are given. Despite this, existentialism itself does not promote much in the way of universality and this lack of congruity means that no therapeutic experience will likely be the same.