INTRODUCTION
Robert Feldman (2010) defines lifespan development as a study that analyzes different patterns of change and growth in behavior that happens throughout an individual’s entire life. Though multiple theories exist to explain lifespan development, all specialists agree that both environment and heredity contribute to human development. For our case study, we would focus more on the environmental aspect of both Tayib and Rachel. The environmental aspect basically describes the surrounding circumstances an individual grew up with. It is largely affected by the people around them and the accompanying cultural circumstance they are currently in.
Twenty-nine-year old Tayib is a paralegal in a law office in the United States. He is of Indian descent but grew up in America since birth. Though Tayib’s parents have always encouraged him to pursue a higher education, Tayib never had the confidence to study law. Though he is being taken advantaged of by his coworkers, he refuses to leave because he believes that his chances of growth are still in civil service. Tayib has a 27-year old girlfriend named Rachel. She is a White woman and has a corporate job in the city. Rachel has a three-year old son named Luke out of wedlock. This situation actually strained her relationship with her parents.
Though Tayib and Rachel like to have a serious relationship, their situation is currently under tension. This is because Tayib chose to work on a crucial project instead of attending Rachel’s birthday dinner for Luke where her parents are also invited. Rachel feels rejected and unappreciated, butTayib doesn’t understand why she is so upset. Tayib already brought mother and son to an amusement park to celebrate Luke’s birthday and is now wondering if Rachel really understands his desire to work hard and keep his job.
CHALLENGE AND ISSUES
The challenges on Tayib’s part is his low self-esteem, lack of security and initiative, and role confusion. These factors caused him to cling on to his job too much that he chose it over an important dinner with Rachel’s family. Rachel’s challenge is she felt unloved because of the strained relationship with her parents and the feeling that Tayib does not prioritize her that much. What caused this challenges will be discussed further in the following paragraphs. But what should be emphasized is that both Tayib and Rachel’s challenges put a strained in their relationship. This is basically the primary issue that needs to be fixed. The last few paragraphs will tell of an intervention that would focus mainly on this this primary issue.
Being an American with Indian roots, Tayib’s bicultural situation seems to have a big impact on his personality development. Having immigrants from India as parents, Tayib grew up culturally different from other Anglo-Americans. For example, Western culture marks young adulthood beginning at the age of 20, signifying the end of one’s teenage years. In the Indian culture, the transitional period from teenaged years to adulthood is not generally recognized. Submission to parents is still a requirement even after one has become employed or has left the parental home (Sue, 1981 cited by Segal 1991). Depending on how far Indian immigrants are will to accept Western values, Indian children will experience significant role discrepancies and conflicts (Segal, 1991).
These role discrepancies and conflicts are explained by Erik Erikson in his psychosocial theory of personality development. Erikson claims that a particular crisis occurs at each developmental stage. These crises are developed based on the interaction of the psychological needs of an individual with the needs of the society. Personality develops in an orderly sequence as the individual tries to achieve as each stage successfully. Effective accomplishment of each stage produces a healthy personality. In contrast, failure to succeed in a stage can hinder one from achieving other stages, resulting to an unhealthy personality. Erikson stressed the role of society and culture as an individual tries to complete each stage. He also emphasized the period of adolescence, believing it to be vital in personal identity development (McLeod, 2013).
As we discussed the stages of psychosocial development, we will try to compare Tayib and Rachel’s case to see if what stages were successfully achieved or not based on his current personality.
The first stage is trust versus mistrust and it normally occurs from birth to 12 to 18 months of age. This stage emphasizes the relationship between the infant and the primary caregiver (i.e. mother). If the primary caregiver gives constant and reliable care to the infant, the latter will feel secure and develop trust. In contrast, when the caregiver is unpredictable and inconsistent, mistrust occurs that would later make the child have trust issues toward the world (McLeod, 2013). Tayib doesn’t seem to have any trust issues so we can presume that he has successfully completed this stage. This is not surprising since according to Whiting (1961, citied by Segal, 1991), Asian Indians infants are often overindulged. Rachel doesn’t also seem to have any issues on trust. She just feels unappreciated and unloved, not paranoid that Tayib might be seeing another woman. And the fact that she wants to mend her relationship with her parents shows that she loves them and have no trust issues with them.
The second stage is autonomy versus shame and doubt (around eighteen months to three years old). At this stage, children begin to explore their surroundings and are starting to become independent by making choices of what they like to eat or wear. It is important for parents to allow exploration on a reassuring environment tolerant to failure. Gross (1992, cited by McLeod) stated that parents should be teaching children to do things on their own, but not criticizing them when they make a mistake. Accomplishment of this stage will lead to making the child independent, confident and secure in their ability to survive on their own in the future. If children are overly controlled, they may lack self-esteem because of doubt and shame in their own abilities. Unfortunately, Indians at this age are being reared in an authoritarian atmosphere where “autonomy is not tolerated” (Whiting, 1961 as cited by Segal, 1991). Tayib’s lack of self-confidence and security may be stem from this kind of upbringing. At 29 years old, he still does not have enough confidence to pursue law. And though he feels he is being taken advantaged of at work, he refuses to leave, clinging so much on the “security” his job offers that he chose it over Luke’s birthday dinner. So one can observe that shame and doubt forms a greater part in Tayib’s personality, consistent with the general Indian upbringing of squelching autonomy as observed by Whiting. Erikson stated that one must first be able to accomplish a specific stage before moving on to the next one. Since Tayib seems to achieve balance in this stage, it is likely that there will also be an unbalanced crisis in the following stages. Fortunately for Rachel, she seems to have accomplished this stage. She seems to be independent enough and made the choice to live with a man and have a child with him. Though she and Luke’s father separated, she was able to provide for Luke’s basic needs even without the support of her parents. Thus starting in this stage, one can see that Tayib and Rachel are not already in the same psychological stage.
The third stage is initiative versus guilt (around three to six years old). This period is described as independence of activities as the child starts to initiate activities and plan games with his peers. If the child is allowed to do these, he will learn to develop initiative and leadership. Conversely, squelching of independence through criticism or control, may develop a sense a guilt and nuisance to others resulting to being mere followers without self-initiative(McLeod, 2013).Tayib’s lack of initiative in pursuing his goal of studying law and staying as an employee who just always follow his coworkers show that the authoritarian atmosphere is strong in Tayib’s growing up years. Rachel seems to also have accomplished to stage. Aside from being an independent single mom, she has enough initiative to do everything she can to keep Tayib interested with her. In their relationship, I think it is Rachel who makes more of an effort to keep it going. I think that if Rachel wants something, she has enough initiative to do something about it. For example, because she wants to mend her relationship with her parents, she set up the dinner inviting her parents. The reason she may not be confronting Tayib is because she thinks she has always been the one putting on an effort. May be she feels it is Tayib’s time to put more on an effort this time. Another probable reason she is not confronting Tayib is because she’s scared that she might push Tayib away and cause a breakup.
The fourth stage is industry versus inferiority(around six to twelve years old). The child’s peers will have a greater impact and will become a significant source of his self-esteem. Thus, the child will feel the need of his peer’s approval by showing certain competencies valued by society. Also, because society is starting to play an important role in the child’s development, the child may feel that parental status and skin color determine social worth (McLeod, 2013). Inferiority is likely to predominate in Tayib’s personality since he just allows himself to be taken advantaged of and get passed over promotion. His darker skin color may also result to a sense of inferiority. Someone who believes in his own abilities will pursue his dream of studying law and will find a higher paying job in the future. But Tayib seems to look down on himself and considers that he can only progress when he stays in civil service. Rachel may have failed this stage as well. We don’t exactly know how. But she seems to also have inferiority issues if she is always the one putting on an effort to keep Tayib interested in her. It doesn’t explain why Rachel and Luke’s father never married. But one reason Rachel did not pursue marriage was may be because she feels she is not good enough to get married if Luke’s father didn’t proposed.
The fifth stage is identity versus role confusion (around 12 to 18 years). This is the stage where an individual desires to belong in a society, thus would need to learn what his role as an adult will be. Failure to determine one’s identity in society can result to role confusion or identity crisis. Sue (1973, cited by Segal, 1991) reported that identity crisis, isolation, and alienation from both Indian and American culture are normal feelings for second-generation immigrant children. This is because one’s self-identity is often inhibited to foster one’s obligation to the family (Sinha, 1984, cited by Segal). Segal warns that pressuring one to assume a specific identify may lead to rebellion. This may explain Tayib’s refusal to follow his parents’ desire to of him pursuing law. In Rachel’s case, as a daughter, her strained relationship with her parents may caused her some confusion of what’s a daughter’s role in society is. She chose to live with a man and have a child with him out of wedlock. Though she knows how to be a mother to Luke, she may deem that she has failed to be a good daughter as according to society’s standards.
The 6th stage is intimacy versus isolation (18 to 40 years of age). Since Tayiband Rachel failed to achieve balance between different crises in the previous stages, it is not surprising that they have difficulty prioritizing their commitment with each other. This stage is about sharing one’s self to others, and if one has not yet fully established his role and identity in society, then it would be difficult for him or her to share his or her life with others. It is normal for Tayib and Rachel, at their current ages, to seek love and commitment in a relationship. But as according to Erikson, if balance of crises was not achieved in previous stages, than one would have difficulty achieving balance in the succeeding stages.
INTERVENTION
The counselor could use solution-focused (SF) techniques to help Tayib and Rachel. This type of technique is goal-directed where the counselor observes the client’s responses to a sequence of precisely worded questions that focuses on the current and future situation (de Shazar, et al, 2007). The counselor will help Tayib and Rachel identify their goals by creating a specified description of what their life will look like when each of their goals are accomplished and the conflicts are being coped satisfactorily. Both Tayib and Rachel have the same goal of being in a serious committed relationship. But they also have other desires that may hinder this goal. For Tayib, it’s his desire to keep his job. For Rachel, it’s her desire to fix things with her parents. Applying the SF technique, the counselor will remind Tayib and Rachel of “exceptions,” which are basically happy experiences that Tayib and Rachel felt all throughout their relationship. These “exceptions” are also the times that they both feel that their goals of being in a serious relationship are already being manifested to some degree. Thus the focus of the therapy is now on the details of the exceptions and not on the description of the problem. It would be difficult to address all Tayib and Rachel’s problems because a lot of factors seem to contribute to their identity development. Tayib especially, seems to have conflicts stemming since childhood, if one would base it on Erikson’s psychosocial theory.
The SF technique has the advantage of being client-oriented as it regards clients as being the experts of their own lives. That is, clients themselves know their goals. What the counselor does is to help these clients focus on their goals (de Shazar, et al, 2007). It has the optimistic view that when one focuses on his goals, the underlying problems and conflicts will subconsciously be fix to a point where they wont bother the individual from achieving his goals.
The counselor should just guide Tayib and Rachel on focusing on their goal to have a serious relationship with each other. Tayib and Rachel can do this by envisioning their desired future with their problems and conflicts being coped satisfactorily that these no longer create a hindrance to their goal. The SF technique may seem simple, but according to McKeel (n.d.) multiple researches have shown consistently that it is effective with an eighty percent success rate. It is also superiorly effective compared to other treatment models in a broad range of problems such as parent-conflicts, relationship problems, and self-esteem, issues that both Tayib and Rachel experience.
CONCLUSION
Culture seems to play a big part on life span development, particularly on one’s personality. As in Tayib’s case, his low self-esteem, self-doubt, lack of security, sense of inferiority, and identity confusion may all stem from the Indian culture of sacrificing individual autonomy for the sake of the family. Though the control model is not necessarily bad because it promotes family integrity via the belief of one’s obligation to duty, it still caused a general feeling of shame, guilt, and a consciousness of moral obligation to one’s family on young Indian American adults (Sue,1981, cited by Segal, 1991). Tayib’s bicultural background has a deep impact on his personality development, creating an imbalance between different crises on different stages of psychosocial development. Failure to accomplish these stages caused tension with his relationship with Rachel whose stage in psychosocial development is different from his. Though both desire to have a serious relationship, they still have subconscious issues that are still needed to be deal with. Since both have a lot of issues, it would be better for the counselor to focus on Tayib and Rachel’s goals rather than the root cause causes of their problems. The SF technique has been proven by multiple researches to be effective in doing this. In this technique, the counselor gently guides the clients to envision their desired future without the problems involved through a series of gently guided questions and prompting.
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