different developmental concept shape or mold a person’s life, understanding the impact that different live experience makes a person who they are or who they can potentially be.

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to understand how different developmental concept shape or mold a person’s life, understanding the impact that different live experience makes a person who they are or who they can potentially be. Understanding how different social structures help to formulate a person’s life. Understanding how the brain changes over time due to its development and the experiences a person has had in their life. This paper will explain what make each person unique. This paper will explain why it is important to get to know each client, learning the importance of bio psychosocial and how it leads the therapist to finding the right treatment modality suitable for the client. DEVELOPMENTAL 3 Summary of Life Events Born in Jamaica to parents who were not in a relationship, 52-year-old Maria McDonald put the relationship of her parents into her own definition. She explained it was rather unfortunate how her parent met or known each other. She chooses not to go into details as she said it is disturbing to her. Maria later mentioned her father was the boyfriend of a close family member to her mother. She decided not to go into further details. Maria spoke about how difficult it was to have a relationship with her father at a very young age “it was almost as if he never existed”. She knew him, she knew he was her father, but their relationship was nonexistence. Maria was placed in a few different homes to live with family members as her mother lived with her new husband and other children. Maria in her early teens lived with her mother and step father, she had the responsibility of make baskets for her step father to take to the market on the weekends to be sold. Very often Maria had to stay home from school along with her older brother with whom she shared the same father. They had a responsibility that to their parents was more important than them going to school. She spoke about the hurt she felt watching her siblings going to school as she had no choice but to stay home and make baskets. Maria talked about the days the she could attend school. She attended school without food, and no shoes. DEVELOPMENTAL 4 Maria talked about the domestic violence that was present in the home. She witnessed several fights between her mother and stepfather. Many times, she was the reason for the fight, or she would get involved because she felt the need to help her mother which would result into her getting thrown out of the house. “One thing that I always had when was my brother, he never left my side. We both moved together whenever we get kicked out from one place to another we would both go, my brother never left my side he was my biggest support, he gave me money for school and bought my first shoes for school.” Maria at the age of 14 years ran away from home along with her brother, to live with her uncle who was married and lived with his wife and 2 children who were around the same age as her and her brother. Per Maria they we very welcoming especial after they explained to them how they were being treated at their parent’s house. Maria stated the first couple of weeks everything was good, they were sent to school daily and everything was normal. Maria and her brother were both given chores which she felt was fine because working around the house was nothing new to her. Maria said she noticed her cousin who both lived in the house no longer had to do chores. Maria stated that wasn’t what she wanted however she was will to do them because life was much better there than at her parent’s home, Maria pause for a minute during the interview and said, “can you imagined? No one came looking for us” refereeing to her parents. “it was as if we never ran away”. Maria spoke about how everything quickly changed in the home of her aunt and uncle as the work load became heavier and heavier. Both Maria and her brother were expected to travel for mile with load on their heads, “sometimes without shoes on my feet”. Maria said her uncle would beat her if she wasn’t able to do all the work, he had planned for her in a day while her cousins had nothing to worry about. She said sometimes she was just tired and needed to rest. DEVELOPMENTAL 5 Maria said her uncle was a farmer, who did his farming many miles away from home and she had to walk for miles each day to bring him his food on the farm. Maria said she had a friend who walked with her almost every day to keep her company as she brought the food to her uncle. Maria said one day she uncle got really upset and told her to come alone, Maria could understand why it would be a bother to him that he friend would follow her. Maria said as she got to the farm one day to deliver the food he didn’t see her uncle so she hollered as loudly as he could, she stated he answered from a distance telling her to come into what she described as a small cave, per Maria she was afraid to enter the cave and wanted to run home but she knew what the outcome would be whenever he returned home later that day. She said she walked up to him and handed him the food. Maria said he took the food from her and held out his hand to grab her, but she was able to run away from him. Maria said this was a very hard time for her because there was no one she could talk to about it but her brother. Maria and her brother then made plans to return home to he mother’s house. Maria and her brother soon after went to school and never retuned home to her uncle’s house. Upon their arrival to her mother’s home she realizes that nothing has changed. She was out of school once again she was expected to make baskets for her stepfather, take care of her younger brothers and sister and keep the house. Maria take about a time when her mother and Step father got into a physical fight. She watched her mother being beaten by her stepfather, she became concerned for her mother and proceeded to separate them from fighting. As she got to the both her step father became defensive and picked up a piece of wood which he used to hit her, Maria stated her step father hit her hard enough she suffered a broken arm. Per Maria, her mother defended her husband and showed no remorse even though she suffered the broken harm try to protect her. DEVELOPMENTAL 6 Maria spoke about moving back to her Aunt’s house because her stepfather told her to leave his house. Maria told that her aunt and uncle were both always welcoming whenever she needed to move in with them. According to Maria things were never perfect there but she always knew they would welcome her and her brother into their home. Child Abuse and Development Individual outcome of abuse varies due to a combination of different factors. The child’s age when the abuse accrued play an important role in how the child is affected. Child abuse usually takes place in the home by family member, caretaker, or parent. The abusers are often people who have experienced some sort of abuse or trauma. Maria’s mother was raised by her grandmother, according to Maria. Maria’s mother might not have been abused but she never had the chance to receive motherly love and due to her own childhood experience and lock of education she never learned how to treat her own child. According to Erik Erickson’s Theory The fifth psychological theory is identity vs. role confusion which occurs between the ages of 12-18 years. This is the time frame that Maria spoke about the most. During this stage adolescent seek for sense of self and personal identity through personal value, beliefs and goals. Maria did not have a chance to identify those values due to the way both her parent and aunt and uncle treated her, she was given responsibilities that did not have per personal qualities as important. Maria wanted to attend school, yet she was unable to attend because she had to make basket for her stepfather to take to the market for sale. Children who are living in poverty are at a higher risk of experiencing abuse. Often children who are being abused have parents who are teenagers. Maria’s mother became pregnant with her during her teenage years. Children who are victims of child abuse suffers from mental DEVELOPMENTAL 7 health, these conditions are often not diagnosed. Emotional and psychological conditions often deny children the tools they need to cope with stress and deny them the chance to live a health childhood which often affect them as adults. Adolescents has been traumatic for Maria. Trauma is a psychological or emotional response to a distressing or disturbing situation experience by a person. When a person experiences a traumatic event, adrenalin rushes through the body and the memory is imprinted into the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system. The amygdala can read the emotional significance of the event. The amygdala stores the visual images of trauma as sensory fragments, which means the trauma memory is not stored like a story, but by how our five senses were experiencing the trauma at the time it was occurring. The memories are stored through fragments of visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, or touch. Maria talked about the smell of “Whist” this is the material she used to make basket in in teenage years. Maria say whenever she smells “whist” it would remind her of her childhood, “not being able to go to school, watching her friends walking by her house as they go to school, she had no choice but to make basket. The memories associated with the “whist” brought back unpleasant memories that made her just as hurt as she was as a child. All experience changes the brain. The brained is designed to, the brain is designed to respond to patterned repetitive stimulations which applies to experience relating to trauma. Another set of neural systems that become sensitized by repetitive stressful experiences are the catecholamine systems including the dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems. These key neurochemical systems become altered following traumatic stress. There is no denying that Maria still has anger built up due to her childhood experiences. She showed rage, she got angry as she talked about the experiences she had in her teenage years, DEVELOPMENTAL 8 she is now in her fifties. The repeated recollection of traumatic memories is a central component of the phenomenological response to traumatic events. Freud highlighted the importance of traumatic memories in his first lecture with Breuer, suggesting that these were the “agent still at work” playing a central role in symptom onset and maintenance. A component of the symptoms of PTSD is the reliving of a traumatic experience. Maria has had some traumatic experiences; one event took place when she went to bring her uncle food and he attempted to grab her hand. Maria was afraid to bring in food on the farm after that experience. She was forced to relive that particular experience daily. She had to bring food to the farm not knowing if he would make another attempt. Maria was not diagnosed with PTSD, she does not have all the symptoms of PTSD based on the information collected, however the interview was not intended to diagnose. Understanding the developmental framework of the client and contextual characteristics that shape their lives plays a major role in providing the proper care and needed for the client. Healthy human development is characterized by age-related changes in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral abilities. Understanding the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACS) can bring light on how Maria’s development might have been affected. Individual with an ACE that is too high has a great chance of suffering with chronic emotional and physical health conditions. Whenever people thrust over and over again into stress inducing situations during childhood or adolescence, their physiological stress response shifts into overdrive, and they lose the ability to respond appropriately and effectively to future stressors. Due to Maria’s Childhood experiences, having to move from one home to another to escaping sexual abuse from her uncle and having to return to that same he because she had nowhere else to go. DEVELOPMENTAL 9 Nature and Nurture It is paramount that human beings may share the same geographical location but possess different genes and traits. The world is composed of people with different background, race, color, and attributes. People have different physical characteristics, cognitive characteristics, and psychological characteristics. It is evident that many of these traits and attributes are generic while others are related to the upbringing and the environment. To narrow it down, this paper seeks to discuss the role played by nature versus the role played by nurture on my physical, cognitive and psychological characteristics. Physical characteristics such as color, energy level, and health. According to Plato, who was a philosopher, physical appearances such as color are inborn thus more based on nature than nurture. Physical appearances of humans are more generic and natural and have nothing to do with the environment. On the other hand, some physical attributes such as height are highly generic and biological though they may also be influenced by some environmental factors and lifestyle thus qualifying being nature and nurture based (Kong, Thorleifsson, Frigge, Vilhjalmsson, Young, Thorgeirsson & Gudbjartsson, 2018). Regarding illnesses, it is clear that some diseases are generic and hereditary while others are mainly attributed to the lifestyle and environment where one survives. Diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis and high blood pressure are hereditary. Additionally, some physical appearances such as eye color, hair color, and skin color are also biologically predetermined. However, some of these diseases are also related to the upbringing, environment and the lifestyle of human beings. For instance, most people suffer from obesity, blood pressure and other DEVELOPMENTAL 10 lifestyle diseases due to the quality of the food they take. On the energy level, trength is attributed to the type of food that consumed and the exercises involved in on a daily basis, the energy level is more nurture based than natural. Additionally, how a child behaves can also be influenced by parenting styles and other experiences in life. Most attributes and behaviors that students demonstrate in schools are related to what they observed from their parents or someone around them. The nativists believe that most behaviors, attributes, and personality traits are the outcomes of inheritance. For example, some children copy the traits of their parents which manifest themselves as they grow up. It is certain that some mental disorders are related to the environment. Eventually, these disorders ruin families and end up bringing frustrations in homes. Any society where drugs are common and easily available tend to produce very many drug addicts who later experience mental problems. It is not given that one will suffer from illnesses, diseases, and disorders of the parents, siblings, and grandparents. 11 DEVELOPMENTAL Summary The purpose of this paper is to shed light and bring awareness to the important of childhood development. Development begins from the whom and ends at the end of life. Either people adopt to deferent environment or they get affected by it. The way that people think, and act is determined by their developmental experiences. Everyone perceive the world differently and that is because everyone gets a different take away from the same experience. People don’t always get the same experience from any particular experience. An example of how people are affected differently is; soldiers who are deployed int war zone don’t always diagnosed with PTSD, however some of them do. That does not mean that the soldiers who has PTSD are weak. This means that being in a war zone affect some more than others. Maria is talked about her life as an adolescent, she spoke about this time more than any other time in her life. As she stated this is the most memorable time of her life, and it has shaped her into to adult that she is today. Maria did not get a chance to go to school like she wanted to however she is still able to read and understand what she read. This brought up curiosity, Maria worked as a factory worker sewing for all of her adulthood life, what career path would she have taken if she was given the chance to go to school like her younger brothers and sister did? Understanding development present a different outlook on why people act the way they do and do the things they do. Life experiences can either enable one’s ability or disables it. The way that a person react to event and experience is always base on prior experiences. A person cannot be afraid of something they have had no prior experience with, even if the experience took place in the subconscious mind. Something has had to take place to make a person feel or act the way they do. 12 DEVELOPMENTAL Conclusion Knowing a person is deeper than knowing where they were born, what is their favorite color or even know their name. It is easy to think you know a person but understanding why people act the way they do is more than knowing little personal information. Yes it is possible know what a person is like or what they like depending on small information. 13 DEVELOPMENTAL References Cordón, L. A. (2012). Freud’s world: An encyclopedia of his life and times. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood. Fernando, S. (2010). Mental health, race and culture. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Shannon, S. (2002). Handbook of complementary and alternative therapies in mental health. San Diego: Academic Press. …