Lifespan Variable: Psychological Aspects Term Paper

The life of a general man can span up to 70 years and more. With the development in medical sciences, the general age of dying is gradually becoming more and more distant. Now, a man can live to more than 90 years. But for a long and healthy life, a person must maintain strict regulations in his life.

There are a lot of methods by which a man can determine how he is going to spend his days in order to live a long and healthy life. The processes can be named as qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodology design. Also clinical psychology plays an important role in this case. It is nothing but an integration of science and theories to offer the clinical ‘knowhow’ for the all-round and thorough development of a person. Basically a part of the mental health treatments, it is a very important aspect for the well-being of any person (Damasio, 1999).

This is one of the most preferred methods on the subject we are dealing with. It enables the patient to know what is really important for his or her health and how it could be taken care of. This also gives the chance to take care of the patient’s health from both the ways, from the doctor’s angle he will try to cure the patient medically, and from the point of view of the patient, he will mentally prepare himself to do everything that is needed to be physically fit. This unique combination makes clinical psychology one of the most in demand studies and forms of treatment and form controlling life span, this could be one of the most researched subjects in near future too (Metzinger, 1999).

The abnormalities of birth are mainly caused by the teratogen hormone. Clinically speaking, there are a lot of factors that can really cause this mishap. Generally, 3-5% of the entire new born children are born with birth defects, and this is the most important case of infant mortality. A recent study showed that in the United States, the defect causes 20% of all infant death. Also another aspect of worry in this case is almost 65% of these deaths have no identifiable causes in them (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2001).

There are a wide range of different chemical agents present that can make this happen along with some environmental agents too. Chemical agents like “ethanol, temazepam, aminopterin, busulfan, some infections, exposure to atomic weapons, or radiation therapy” (Baars, 1988) etc can cause the problem. Also, excessive smoking, and consumption of caffeine and alcohol can also cause the disease too.

This is something really accidental but by the means of clinical psychology, the physicians can make the patients stay away from the smoking and drinking, which can prevent the risk.

One of the most difficult corners of psychology deals with infant temperament. There are a wide variety of temperaments that we can see in infants and that can be termed as natural in some cases. As there is a wide variety, sometimes parents need to be assured that their child is behaving normal. Generally there are three types of infant temperament and they are “easy temperament, slow-to-warm-up temperament and difficult temperament” (Dolan, 1999).

Generally most babies fall under easy temperament. They adapt to new conditions, try to learn new things and eat in regular intervals. Sometimes, when they experience discomfort of any sort, then they might create fuss. They are basically even-tempered. Parenting babies with easy temperament is easy and most importantly, it is a rewarding experience too but there are other variable too and this falls in the second group. The second groups of babies are generally very shy, and they need more time to adjust with people and places. “Slow-to-warm-up babies generally are not very active physically” (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2003). These are the babies who carefully watch what is going around them. But they might get over-stimulated sometimes too. They can reject someone new or they might not like something new, and this is a characteristic trait of them. “They respond slowly and quietly to all their needs, like hunger or any other discomfort” (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2003). Parenting a slow-to-warm-up baby is really a job that has to be handled with patience. The babies gradually adapt to new conditions and the process can take time. The parents have to give the babies enough time to accustom itself with the new weather. The third group of babies is the difficult babies.

“The babies with difficult temperament almost always engage in physical activities” (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2003). They do have restless temperament too. “They can be easily distracted and they can respond vigorously to all the discomforts” (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2003). They are generally too fussy. Parenting of this kind of baby is tough but a parent must be consistent and sometimes it is seen that as the baby grows up the difficult approach slowly goes away. In the case of infant psychology, the parents are the best judge. They should watch the baby carefully and judge what the baby is. They must not put any burden on the baby, but treat it like an individual. This will help both the parents and the baby to grow up.

The study of emotional development of infants is a fascinating chapter of study. There are some theories like differential emotion theory, social learning theory and others, which tries to explore the emotion of an infant. Sometimes there arises some questions like whether the children learn the emotions or the emotions are pre-determined biologically to the infants.

For an infant it is really important that it must develop an emotional attachment with its parents. According to the “Attachment Theory” by John Bowlby, an infant will be attached to an adult person, also known as an attachment figure in stressful situations as it will depend on the person to help him out from that situation. Generally the infant children become emotionally attached to the persons whom they regularly see and have interaction with, and the persons who can be said as constant caregiver to a particular child (Llinás, 2001).

Sometimes some negative aspects can be seen in the infant’s attitude and to get rid of this psychological situation both the parents and the medical practitioner has to work together. We have to keep in mind, for an infant the parents who always stays with the child are the best judge of the child and whether something has happened to him or not. And to make a child keep away from negative emotional problems the efforts of the parents will be deciding (Gregory, 1998).

Self-esteem is one of the most important emotions of a human being and the self-esteem of a person grows from his or her childhood. It might feel strange that infants, who are so tiny also, have self esteem, and the seed of self esteem of a person is planted in his or her infancy. One has to keep in mind that before a child is born, all the basic needs of the child gets fulfilled in the mother’s womb. But once it comes out of the mother’s womb, the most important and tough act for a child is that it has to vocalize its needs to the caretakers so that they can help it to fulfill its demands (Sheets-Johnstone, 1998).

Fulfilling the basic needs of an infant are not only needed to make the child grow into a physically healthy human being, but they also help it to develop its self-esteem. The parents must encourage the child to learn something new, or always praise him when he tries to do something which he has never done before. Try to give him scope to go on with his life and watch from the sidelines of his life, but always be ready to help him when he needs help. Let the child try to do the things on his own before the parents go to help him out.

A parent must never say no to a child while he is doing something(obviously not doing a dangerous thing) and try to present simple choices which will help to develop his all round development. Also the parents are also recommended that they can gradually increase the responsibilities of the child in the house, which is also another very good way of increasing the responsibility of a child (Scaruffi, 1999).

The child’s development in terms of information processing and other skills, along with the thorough development of brain is compiled together in the subject of cognitive development. It is a combination of neuroscience and human psychology and is one of the upcoming subjects and lots of research are going on in this sphere of studies (Riva & Waterworth, 2003).

The lion’s share of the research in cognitive development is based on the subject how the child conceptualizes the World surrounding it self. If we look through the World through the eyes of a four year old child, we will see that the child is still very much dependent on its parents. Going to school and spending time with the friends in school is one of the favorite tasks of the child. He learns different subjects and also he learns to read, the outside World presents itself to the child with all the colors and beauty to a four year old child. But the perspective thoroughly changes in the case of a boy or girl who is just going to graduate from college.

Generally most of the boys and girls of the adolescence age are quite financially independent, and sometimes they stay away from their parents. They are sometimes romantically involved with a person of their age and it gives a whole new perspective to their lives. Along with it they also suffer some physical changes and they also affect their psychology too. The small achievements that once cheered the same boy or girl when he or she was four do not even stir their mind. This is a complex stage of the human mind (Scaruffi, 1999b).

Obesity is a big problem in any part of life and it is especially a real problematic thing if a school-going kid is suffering from obesity. Generally a school going kid has to participate in a lot of physical activities and obesity creates a huge hindrance in this aspect. In recent times there are a lot of things that can make a child obese. Now, school going children are getting more and more attached to the computer games and continue to play the games for long hours. They generally stay away from the sports that require physical efforts. And they along with it love to gorge on junk foods which also make the child really fat. And this abnormal weight gain can cause serious health problems for the child in the later stages of their lives (Slater, 2003).

The parents of a child must keep a strong watch on the child so that it might not become a victim of obesity. They must make the child believe that playing computer games for long hours is seriously bad for the child. And they must ensure that the child has a healthy diet. They also have to try to encourage the child into physical sports, which will be really good for the overall mental and physical development of the child.

A school going kid with obesity can be the victim of class mates’ jokes and that can make him really sad, and it will also prevent him to take part in many school activities. So the parents have to keep a really close watch on the child so that it not get fat (Janoff-Bulman & Frantz, 1997).

The easiest language to learn for a kid is the language its mother speaks, and it easily learns the language and can use it fluently very early in life. It is a divine experience for the parents to hear the first words from the toddler. The language development is one of the earliest processes that a child experiences in its life. A child first learns to talk by mimicry and the language of the infants is called “Babbling” (Metzinger, 1999).

Some researchers say that language is one of the most unique accomplishments of a child, and others rely on the widely discussed nature-nurture doubt in this case. But whether the case may be, language development is one of the most important parts of a child and it also decides that in later parts of life how he will communicate with the world. But reading is a more complex process than speaking or language development. The learning process to read is a really complex one and the parents have to be very patient on this aspect. A child can take time to learn to read, as it is not a mimicry based process at all (Damasio, 1999).

Learning to speak and learn also is very important for a child as it will ultimately help to find them a position in the society. The teachers and also the parents will have to cleverly imply reading education to the child so that it can imply the education on its own.

Sometimes when a family consists of more than one child than there comes a question of preference. Some members of the family sometimes tend to devote the main attention and attraction to one child, which sometimes adversely affect other children of the family. And that sometimes leaves deep stress among the children and also can divide them mentally (Gregory, 1998).

Actually middle childhood to adolescence is a critical period for any child and in this period he or she needs extreme care. If sometimes the child is emotionally affected by something that has been done by the family members than it can remain a deep scar on the mind of the child and it can also cause some mental troubles too.

The parents and the elder family members have to be extra careful when they have more than one child in the family. They have to look to all of them with same amount of affection, and this will not only help the children to grow up in a decent manner, but they will also learn to respect the elders accordingly, which will ultimately be good in all aspects (Scaruffi, 1999).

One of the oft-discussed theories of love is Professor Robert Sternberg’s Theory of love. This theory consists of three parts, “intimacy, passion and commitment”. According to him intimacy is the emotional attachment or connection that is based on sharing personal information with each other and also developing a mutual acceptance to one another. This is the basic part of any affair. Then he discusses passion, which according to him is termed as the motivational drive of love. It deals with the craving for sexual attachment with the partner, and in some cases sexual intimacy too (Baars, 1988).

He also mentioned that passion can be easily aroused as well as destroyed. The third and the most thoughtful part of love are called commitment. It not only helps a person to decide that he or she is in love but also craves the person to develop a lasting commitment to the person or the relation.

From all the forms of love only consummate love has all the three factors present in them and therefore it is said to be the most lasting and rewarding experience of love among all the other different loves. There are also different models of love and it is interesting to know that brain scans of some persons in love have shown that they have certain similar brain patterns like the persons who have some kind of mental illness. Physicians believe that love is an emotion which creates some activities in brain where only emotions like hunger, thrust and cravings for drug (in special cases) creates some effects. Actually love is a feeling and how it will affect a person is determined by the angle he looks at it. It is one of the most satisfying feelings as the researchers mention and all the theories suggest too (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2001).

Human health starts to break as he ages, and there are many complications that arise when a person gets old. There are a lot of troubles like visionary problem, hearing problems, problems of heart and other cases that can happen to a person who has crossed the age of 40. A person from very young age has to be careful about these problems and must lead a healthy lifestyle so that these problems do not affect him (Dolan, 1999).

In the Middle Ages the physical skills of a person gradually declines, and in some cases mental pressures about the future starts to affect the person. But physical changes are mostly gradual changes, like weight gain and height loss (after 55 men lost 2 inches and a woman loses 1 inch of the height), and the bone density decreases. Sometimes kidney functions also decrease along with the most important disease, malfunctioning of the heart. All of these contribute to the total attitude of the person and they sometimes tend to become really fussy. Persons handling them have to be very careful about their methods and treat them specially (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2003).

In the earlier section we have discussed the problems that arise in the middle age of a person. If we carefully look at all the problems we will see that although most of the problems are physical, we can not offer some real solutions to the problems. If we look at the human body as a machine and all the parts as the components of a machine, than we will clearly understand that after long years of service the parts gradually start to malfunction (Llinás, 2001).

We have to take it in this way. But what the physicians can offer to a middle aged person is to make sure that he keeps mentally strong. And the family of the person has to remind him that he is their one of the most valuable assets. It will surely help the person to stay healthy and fit in his early old age, and probably in his old age too (Riva & Waterworth, 2003).

People generally age differently though they may grow really old. Some people may look physically younger than their age while others can look older than they actually are. Now-a- days the average life expectancy for a male person is 74 and a female person is 80. With the development of medical sciences we can control diseases and it is sure that cognitive development in late adulthood can surely happen in the near future (Slater, 2003).

The aspect of cognitive development in late adulthood is a reality and even though it is not common, it is certainly a possibility and is recorded on several occasions. This cognitive development in late adulthood should not be considered as abnormal but it can be termed a rare (Janoff-Bulman & Frantz, 1997).

Cognitive behavioral theory is a very oft-discussed issue and it has got its strength and weaknesses too. In short we can chart the strengths in the following manner:

1. It helps flexibility in the meeting of individual needs of a person.
2. Helps to adopt a wide range of clinical setting for an individual.
3. The theory is a solid ground for other behavior theory principles too.
4. It links the treatment with science.
5. The goals of the treatment are well specified and it has a specific assessment system too.
6. Helps to emphasize the self efficiency of the patient.
7. At last, it also offers a comparative strong level of empirical support too (Sheets-Johnstone 1998).

There are some weaknesses of the theory too that we must mention:

1. This type of treatment generally does not focus on the patient’s past history and this sometimes can have adverse effect on the patient and also have long term illnesses too.
2. A lot of critics call the theory as a band-aid solution rather than a permanent solution of the problem faced by the person.
3. And the final point in this issue is that this type of therapy sometimes overlooks the broader aspects of the patient’s other clinical problems. This is one of the aspects that remain to be developed (Riva & Waterworth, 2003).

References

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