Introduction
Lifespan development is a science that studies a person’s behavior and cognitive and social skills in all life stages, from infancy through adulthood and into old age. The science looks for the personal characteristics of the persona that allow them to move forward and shape themselves as part of society.
In addition, through the science of lifespan development, one can learn self-awareness skills and form strategies to improve one’s life (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). For counseling psychologists in the early stages of their professional careers, studying this discipline will allow them to understand better how to direct their practice and learn how to work with people. The study of lifespan development is a panacea for the practice of counseling.
Overview of the Discipline
The first thing to do is to outline what areas of knowledge pertain to lifespan development. A person goes through many stages during adulthood during which he or she experiences changes in thinking, lifestyle, and physical and biosocial transformations.
The physical aspect of lifespan development is one of the important ones: it is related to the growth and development of the body and changes in the body and the brain. It is related to the biological and genetic characteristics that form the fundamental thinking and speaking skills, logic, understanding, and learning. The other domains, psychosocial and cognitive, to which counseling psychologists pay the most attention, are building on these abilities.
The psychosocial domain is the domain of the individual’s transformations due to the expansion of the social world. These changes are continuous as the child gradually builds psychological capacity and shapes his or her emotional intelligence, which conditions his or her behavioral characteristics (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019).
The environment plays no small role in how a person defines their position in society and how they evaluate themselves. While there is debate as to whether this is the product of environmental influences or genetic characteristics prevail, this paper advocate that it is the result of dual influences. The psychosocial domain is thus related to behavioral patterns and persona self-definition.
The cognitive domain is strongly related to the other two, as the physical parameters of the brain allow logical operations and the psychosocial parameters condition the type of operations and thinking. For the most part, cognitive processes are related to physical capabilities because neural connections determine virtually all human functions (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). Overall, this domain reveals a perspective on how experience affects thinking, logic, and memory abilities. For counseling psychologists, an individual’s cognitive capacity is vital to choosing the right treatment tactics and shaping future work.
Benefits for the Beginning Counselor Psychologist
First, lifespan development is a biosocial science that allows us to understand the individual as part of society from a developmental perspective. According to Harris and McDade (2018), understanding the biological processes of growing up allows parallels between consciousness and health. Consequently, for the novice counseling psychologist, lifespan development is necessary to shed light on his or her formation of crucial parameters of behavior and health.
Conscientiousness is one of the critical aspects of the psychological disorder identification process, and the counselor must understand the relationship between this characteristic and the individual’s social role (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). Through this discipline, the counselor learns to understand and analyze the relationship between the cognitive, the social, and the psychological. In addition, the counselor will be able to see the connection between the social manifestations of all domains of human development.
Second, the biological approach to development understands the genetic behavioral patterns enshrined in the human genome. These patterns unfold differently during development, and the counseling psychologist’s job is to understand these differences (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). The novice counselor first needs to learn to recognize how the different patterns are realized and why they manifest as they do. The study of lifespan development helps to establish these patterns and broaden the theoretical and practical base.
For the counselor, the genetic underpinnings of behavior may seem distant because the training focuses on studying human psychology. Suppose a counselor encounters an affective disorder for the first time and needs to establish the causes of its development. One tactic is to study the illness’s family history, as genetic clusters are responsible for the development of this type of illness (Wu et al., 2019). Understanding the need for this study lies in the analysis of lifespan development. Consequently, the biological aspect of human development needs to be addressed because concomitant genetic characteristics characterize psychological illnesses.
Third, counseling psychologists may face difficulties interpreting behavior at the beginning of their journey. The study of lifespan development allows the barrier of complexly organized behavior that deviates from the norm to be overcome. Although these connections are made as part of the education of future counseling psychologists, only this discipline will make the picture whole. The science of human development will systematize the behaviors encountered by counselors and build a line of defense for patients against the detrimental effects of these behaviors on a person’s cognitive abilities (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019).
This understanding comes with experience, but early in the journey, it is vital to recognize critical cues of abnormal behavior and identify connections to stages of consciousness development. For example, cognitive skills become weaker with age, and a lifespan development approach allows us to identify which factors influence the maintenance of these abilities (Lövdén et al., 2020). At the same time, a different set of factors will be characterized midlife patients (Kuther & Burnaell, 2019), and the consultant’s task is to learn to identify them. Consequently, this is achievable through lifespan development, so learning this discipline is the first step to developing an analytic mindset.
The Impact of the Discipline on the Practice of Counseling
Lifespan development is a multidirectional and multidimensional process characterized by the complexity of the interaction of various factors. According to Infurna (2021), two other principles are recommended for counseling: lifespan development and the multiplicity of related influencing processes in developmental psychology. According to his assertions, understanding human developmental psychology establishes how the property of resilience is formed.
In turn, resilience is a positive life adaptation that allows the body to develop and grow normally (Infurna, 2021). In addition, based on the psychology of lifespan development, it is possible to establish development patterns from the perspective of the contextual-dialectical model (Rudolf & Zacher, 2017). The discipline forms a particular perspective on the conditions of human development that affect human psychological functioning.
For counseling practice, lifespan development as a discipline is essential to establish the relationship between the developmental context and the formed traits and patterns of behavior, thinking, and the manifestation of signs of the disorder. Psychologists will encounter abnormal manifestations of these characteristics and, using a biosocial approach; will be able to establish the nature of the disorders. Additionally, lifespan development allows for differences in terms of generation and age, which are often crucial in identifying disorders (Rudolf & Zacher, 2017).
Finally, counseling psychologists must understand that age differentiation is one of the most critical aspects of establishing normal behavior and thinking. The ability to establish age patterns can only be developed by studying lifespan development. Consequently, the discipline influences the thinking of psychologists themselves, allowing them to better and more precisely determine age-related deviations from the norm.
Although lifespan development is a broad discipline, it nevertheless experiences a crisis in determining which area prevails in a particular case. On the part of the practitioner, this manifests itself in the impossibility of fully identifying the degree of adaptation of the patient to the recommendations that are advised in the consultation.
Therefore, the question arises about how the material is used in the psychologist’s practice. The lack of criteria for determining the degree of adaptation in the discipline can be leveled out by studying all characteristics of the patient’s development. Practicing counseling psychologists must pay attention to the discipline if they want their practice to be complete and focused on all the gaps of the patient with a psychological disorder.
Conclusion
Lifespan development is a discipline that studies patterns of human growth and development to physical, cognitive, and psychological characteristics. The discipline is important to psychology because it allows parallels to be drawn and patients to be assessed comprehensively. It shapes the type of thinking that mediates the counseling psychologist’s ability to discern and analyze patient behavior based on the patient’s stage of development.
For the novice counselor, lifespan development is vital for understanding the person from a social perspective, considering biological causes, and interpreting and cataloging behavior. As counselors gain experience, they can form their view of the relationship between physical, cognitive, and psychological traits. Consequently, studying lifespan development is a panacea for the counseling psychologist because it mediates his practice and professional thinking.
References
Harris, K. M., & McDade, T. W. (2018). The biosocial approach to human development, behavior, and health across the life course. The Russell Sage Foundation journal of the social sciences, 4(4), 2–26. Web.
Infurna, F. J. (2021). Utilizing principles of life-span developmental psychology to study the complexities of resilience across the adult life span. The Gerontolist, 61(6), 807-818. Web.
Kuther, T. L., & Burnaell, K. (2019). A life span development perspective on psychosocial development in midlife. Adultspan Journal, 18(1), 27-39. Web.
Lally, M., & Valentine-French, S. (2019). Lifespan development: A psychological perspective (2nd ed.). Open Education Resource.
Lövdén, M., Fratiglioni, L., Glymour, M. M., Lindenberger, U., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2020). Education and cognitive functioning across the life span. Psychological Science In The Public Interest: A Journal Of The American Psychological Society, 21(1), 6–41. Web.
Rudolf, C. W., & Zacher, H. (2017). Considering generations from a lifespan developmental perspective. Work, Aging and Retirement, 3(2), 113–129. Web.
Wu, Y., Dang, M., Li, H., Jin, X., & Yang, W. (2019). Identification of genes related to mental disorders by text mining. Medicine, 98(42). Web.