Abstract
James Smart is a 22-year old client who is currently struggling with drug addiction that he started as an adolescent. The fight has not been easy because his body system has become reliant on cocaine that he has been using since his mid-adolescent stage. He makes positive progress in the rehabilitation centers, but every time he is released to go back home for the full recovery, he finds himself using the drugs again. The last time he was brought back, he was in very bad shape, and the progress is slower than the initial cases. As a professional psychologist, I was able to determine that his problem must be related to an issue back at home that might have caused stress at a given stage in his life. To have a permanent solution to this problem, it was necessary to study the last two developmental stages of adolescence and early adulthood. From the analysis, it was revealed that James had a serious social problem at his mid-adolescent stage. The parents divorced and he was forced to live with the abusive father. The love and care he enjoyed during his childhood and the early adolescent stage were suddenly gone. The father did not care about his well-being, and although Smart went through with his education, his social life was in a total mess. This only changed eight months ago when he decided to go and live with his mother. During those trying moments, he became an addict, which is why he is at this center.
James Smart as an Adolescent
Life as an adolescent started on a great note for James Smart. His father was a soldier who had spent over six years in Iraq. He lived with the mother and his younger sister. The mother was a doctor at Mayo Clinic. She was very loving and cared for them. During the mid-adolescent stage, the father came back home. He admired the father, mainly because of the heroic stories he had about the American soldiers in Iraq. When the parents decided to go for a divorce, he decided to live with the father. That was when his life turned upside down. The father turned out to be abusive and less concerned about Smart’s life. According to Newman and Newman (2012), the personality trait of a person is always shaped by the environmental forces that the person faces at various developmental stages. It will be necessary to analyze the life of Smart as an adolescent using several theories.
Cognitive development
It is important to look at Smart’s cognitive development to understand the personality that made him embrace cocaine at this stage of life. According to Linn, Linn, and Linn (1988), Cognitive Theory focuses on an individual’s thoughts as a major determinate of the behavior and emotions. This theory may help explain the reason why James Smart became a drug addict. As an adolescent, he led a lonely life because the father was never there for him. His thought about life changed as he became stressed up. He states that his thoughts during this stage were always suicidal. Life became meaningless to him. Life lost its meaning to him, and this was worsened by the fact that the mother never came back to visit. Smart says that by the time he started using drugs, he had completely lost hope in life. He knew drugs were not good for him. However, he did not care anymore about himself. As stated in the Cognitive Theory, thoughts of an individual always control the emotions and behavior. Smart’s suicidal thoughts led him to drug addiction despite the knowledge that drugs may ruin his life.
Social development
Social development is very important for an adolescent because it will define the future of such a person as an adult. Social development is what James Smart lacked the most during this developmental stage. The father was rarely at home, and every time he was home, he was verbally and sometimes physically abusing towards Smart. Smart lived in fear, both at school and at home. Although the problem was not at school, there was always the fear of what the father would do to him when he went back home. He became withdrawn from other friends. No one would dare visit him at his home, and the father never allowed him to visit friends. He would do all the household chores because the nanny left with his mother. The intimidation and constant abuses from the father made him feel inferior. He felt weak and worthless. This made him seek refuge in drugs. It was only when he was under the influence of the drugs that he felt that he was of some value in life.
Biological development
His biological development was also affected during this stage of development. The father’s constant intimidation, physical abuse, and the fact that he had started using drugs affected his growth. Instead of gaining the lost weight between the ages of 16 to 18 years. He was always in stress, and this affected his appetite. He was lucky not to have developed diseases related to this new lifestyle he was leading. Although the researcher could get little information about his mental development, the drop in performance that was witnessed during this period was a clear indication that there was also a problem with mental development.
Psychosocial development
As an adolescent, psychological development is very important. It is at this stage that one develops a personal identity. Irwin (2002) focuses on the role of the ego during the adolescent stage. According to Sigelman and Rider (2011), at the adolescent stage, the ego develops and resolves issues that are social in a person’s life. As the adolescent gets into rational reasoning, several social issues may need to be addressed effectively. The development of the ego helps an adolescent resolve these issues. Establishing trust in others and the development of a sense of self-identity takes place at this stage, as explained in the Personality Development Theory. For James Smart, this was the worst stage of his life. His psychological development was seriously affected. When he was supposed to develop trust in other people, he developed mistrust because of the inhumane way the father treated him. He lost friends at a time when he was supposed to be making friends with peers. He did not even trust the teachers at school. When it came to the self-identity, it was even worse. He did not believe in himself. He always felt useless among the rest because this is what the father would say to him whenever he was given any chores. According to his statements, he felt inadequate almost in everything. This only changed when he was high on drugs.
Environmental influences
Environmental influences have a very strong impact on one’s development. The environmental forces include people and structures that one comes into contact with often (Ramaswami, 2000). James Smart’s life was very boring during this stage as he explained during the interview. He was either at school learning or home addressing various chores. The father was the main agent of his disastrous adolescent life. His mistrust towards his father was transferred to the teachers and even fellow students. He became very lonely as most of his former friends started dissociating themselves with him. This affected him even father. The dropping grades also served to affirm the constant statement of the father that he was good for nothing. All these factors pushed him further into drug addiction.
James Smart as a Young Adult
The life of James Smart as a young adult took a very different turn from what it was as an adolescent. The week and fearful Smart who would obey everyone and follow their instructions suddenly turned into a rebellious and physically violent man. He had taken much from the father, and as he says, he was tired of it. The violent nature of James was first witnessed when he was 21 years. The father was administering corporal punishment as he had done in the past years because of a mistake that Smart did when he suddenly turned against the father. The physical duel between the father and son resulted in the hospitalization of the father where he was treated for serious head injuries. He had to stay in the hospital for three months for a full recovery. In college, he was constantly at odds with friends. Although he was not provocative, he did not entertain provocation from his fellow students either, something that was not common in the past. His peers had known him as a freak who would easily be intimidated even by the weakest person. However, Smart suddenly changed into a tyrant who did not tolerate intimidation or any form of provocation, even if it is a joke. He started responding violently, and several college mates ended with serious injuries because of this. It is necessary to look at some of the development processes and theories that may help explain this change of behavior.
Cognitive development
As explained in this theory, the perception of Smart about life was in transition when he was an adolescent. His perception of life changed from being a world full of love and trust in a world of violence. To him, the best way of addressing any conflict with other people was through violence. He had learned this from the father and it helped him eliminate the troubling father from his life. His thoughts were full of violence and this defined his emotions and behavior. He became highly irritable, and in many cases, he preferred solitude to be in groups. When the father left the hospital, he did not come back home. Smart has never heard from him. Instead of considering this a loss, to him, this was a victory. The absence of the father meant that he was in control of his life.
Social development
The turn of events during the early childhood of Smart’s life was worse than they were when he was an adolescent. The decision of the father to abandon his home meant that the house had to be reclaimed because it was under the mortgage and Smart could not pay the dues. He was a taxi driver at night and a student in the daytime. The car also acted as his home during this period. His mistrust towards people affected his ability to interact easily with other members of society. The Social Development Theory holds that development is as a result of social interaction. It also holds that social behavior and socialization leads to cognition and consciousness. Smart did not experience socialization and this means that his social development was poor. He did not even understand himself in terms of skills and talents, strengths and weaknesses, or even likes and dislikes. His life was full of fear and the desire to please the abusive father. By the time the father left, Smart had become physically abusive.
Biological development
As a young adult, biological development changed. He started visiting the gym frequently and his eating habits improved remarkably. Although he was still a drug addict, he maintained a healthy diet and regular exercise to remain strong. He had to do this to sustain his new lifestyle where every conflict would be solved through a physical duel. However, his mental development was getting affected by the constant use of drugs. The daily dosage of cocaine had reached alarming rates by the time he first visited the rehabilitation center. His nervous system had become entirely dependent on drugs. He could not do anything important before taking cocaine.
Psychosocial development
According to Psychological Theory Development, a young adult always experience an internal battle between intimacy and isolation. The desire to be loved is always very strong. However, Capps (2008) says that one can only get love if he or she can reciprocate it. This was the major challenge that Smart faced at this stage of his life. Life with his father had nothing to do with love. Life was about intimidating others and making them do what one desired. This is the new lifestyle that he had embraced and it defined his life as a young adult. This meant that he could not get love from his peers and members of society. He had to lead an isolated life, especially because he no longer trusted people around him. This was aggravated by his inferiority complex. He never trusted most of his actions, even in cases where he was highly skilled.
Environmental influences
The environmental forces in the life of James Smart at the stage of a young adult was not as bad as they had been during his adolescent stage, especially after eliminating his abusive father from his life. However, he had become an abusive person who did not believe in negotiations and mutual agreements as ways of solving conflicts. At this time, his thoughts and perceptions of life defined his actions. The main positive change that happened in his life was the reunion with the mother. She was responsible for all the steps Smart had been making to become a better person. She has become a major source of influence in his life. The effort he is putting to quit an addiction is specifically meant to please the mother.
References
Capps, D. (2008). The decades of life: A guide to human development. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Irwin, R. R. (2002). Human development and the spiritual life: How consciousness grows toward transformation. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Linn, M., Linn, S. F., & Linn, D. (1988). Healing the eight stages of life. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2012). Development through life: A psychosocial approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Ramaswami, S. (2000). Yoga for the three stages of life: Developing your practice as an art form, a physical therapy, and a guiding philosophy. Rochester, Vt: Inner Traditions.
Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2011). Life-span human development. Belmont: Cengage Learning.