Humanizing Child Developmental Theory: A Holistic Approach

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1977

To dress correctly for the Bicentennial, psychologists are required t o sport the tasteful color combination of pride and optimism. The arrival of the "Self" would rudely shatter the atmosphere, for this unwelcome guest wears a tattered and outre costume. She used t o be the life and soul of the party; now people whisper behind her back. "She's charming on the surface, but after a while you find there's n o substance t o her." If two of the early presidents of the A.P.A., Mary Whiton Calkins and James Mark Baldwin, proclaimed psychology as "the science of selves," so much the worse for the A.P.A. Like its political past, America's developmental interpretations of the Self are founded upon distinctly different intellectual traditions originating in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. The British empiricism of Locke and Hume, which was most significant for experimental psychology and the study of individual differences, also exerted a formative influence upon the psychology of the Self as expressed by American functionalists, most notably Allport. In this tradition, the Self was conceived as arising from experience through a clustering of impressions. The idea of such an empirical Self constituted an intellectual reaction t o the rational Self of Descartes. The Self seen from this latter perspective represents the core that makes any knowledge of the person possible at all; the concrete experiences appear as mere symptoms documenting and demonstrating what is known t o begin with. The autonomous Self, although in a more moderate form, entered into the logical a-priorism of Kant, and through Kant influenced American developmental interpretations. Both orientations, British empiricism and Continental rationalism, remained individual-centered (or rather, "Self-centered"). The social determinants were treated as only secondary. Moreover, both orientations were a-developmental and a-historical. Thus, viewing the Self in its intimate interdependence with social conditions appears t o be one of the most original contributions of American sociologists, most conspicuously, the symbolic interactionists. This idea also had its predecessors: proponents of idealistic and materialistic dialecticism like Hegel, Marx, and Engels. Departing from these philosophical orientations, however, symbolic interactionism stripped the dialectics of its concrete historical basis, thus making its interpretation more congruent with the synchronic viewpoints of traditional philosophy and sciences, most notably with the theories of Self originating from British empiricism and Continental rationalism. It remains an important and uncompleted task t o elucidate the historical and developmental aspects of the study of Self.

Journal of Symbols & Sandplay Therapy

This paper examines the work of Dr. Michael Fordham, Child Psychiatrist and Jungian Analyst, and his theories of human development. Starting with a brief overview of Jung’s concept of the self the paper considers how Fordham recognised that the processes of individuation occur from birth and describes how he introduced the idea of a primary self which fuels development through processes of deintegration and reintegration. This paper considers these processes in detail and how they can lead, in optimal circumstances, to ego development, the development of mind in relation to self and individuation. A brief example is given of the dynamics of deintegration and reintegration between an infant and their mother/caregiver. Links between Fordham’s ideas and the development of feeling toned complexes are explored and a brief overview is given of how neglect, abuse and trauma can impede the processes of deintegration and reintegration and lead to splitting and defences of the self. A clinica...

British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1987

No-one committed to the value of a psychodynamic perspective for understanding human behaviour would dispute that one essential tenet of this approach is that a developmental perspective can give valuable insight into the understanding of human behaviour. The child, nay indeed the infant, is the father of the man. It is a perspective which stresses that complex and elaborate forms of human behaviour and motivation can be interpreted as the elaboration of more primitive or infantile drives and conflicts. Our conception of the infant's nature, his drives, his needs, his innate potentialities, and how they will be affected or structured by the environment that may meet or fail to meet his requirements, will affect and colour our later understanding of 'the transference in the analytic situation. We may differ about the drives we attribute to the neonate: for example, in our views about the death instinct or whether envy is a primary or secondary phenomenon. Some, like Balint, Fairbairn, Winnicott or Kohut, may regard these drives as secondary products arising from, and exacerbated by, an environmental situation in which there was a traumatising lack of fit between the child and his significant others. We may differ in the significance we attribute to the role of the relationship with the primary caretaker and how this relationship affects the intrapsychic development of the individual. Some will stress the role of the mother as a transformational object of primitive infantile phantasies inasmuch as she can hold and contain them. But does she also function as a stimulator? Do experiences of actual seductiveness at the hands of the mother affect the intrapsychic development of her child? These differences may affect our views of the nature of the relationship between phantasy and reality. When Freud stressed that the main factors in the aetiology of hysteria arose from unconscious phantasy originating from internal sexual drives rather than actual seduction, did he direct our attention away from external reality? These differences will affect how we account for the fact that some individuals have failed in terms of the sublimation and transformation of their pregenital and aggressive drives. Do we explain this in terms of intra-psychic factors, as essentially an internal failure in the taming of the drives, or do we think that a relevant explanatory variable might be the actual relationship with the parents which perhaps failed to provide theh olding' environment necessary for the transformation of the drives? We may differ in the degree to which we understand psychopathology in terms of fixations due to instinctual conflict, or of developmental arrests due to environmental deficit. If we adopt a position regarding unmet needs, what are the mutative factors of the analytic situation? Is it purely the achievement of insight through interpretation of the transference, or are there elements of a corrective experience provided by the analyst's empathic mirroring which are necessary for the tranformation of some narcissistic configurations as Kohut (1971) argues?

The Humanistic Psychologist, 2011

This is a stand-alone peer reviewed article and the seventh chapter of "The Whole Child: Selected Papers on Existential-Humanistic Child Psychology." Dynamic systems theory is one of the most recent perspectives to appear in child development texts. This article critically examines some of the dynamic systems thinking that has emerged in the area of child development from an existential-humanistic developmental point of view. In particular, special attention is given to Esther Thelen and Linda B. Smith's dynamic systems theory, because they alone have made an effort to build an organized dynamic systems framework for interpreting child development. Moreover, this theoretical framework has remained exceptionally popular and influential relative to other dynamic systems works. It was found that there are both similarities and differences between existential-humanistic developmental thought and Thelen and Smith's theory. Alan Fogel's dynamic systems views were found to be helpful in overcoming barriers to a fruitful dialogue between existential-humanistic and dynamic systems approaches to child development.

The Humanistic Psychologist, 2023

This article traces the early history of existential-humanistic developmental psychology. It is argued that this area of inquiry was built upon the pioneering work of a heterogeneous array of authors from numerous backgrounds, including American humanistic psychology, European existential and phenomenological psychology, social and self-styled psychoanalysis, personalistic psychology, comparative psychology, Gestalt psychology, education and pedagogy, philosophy, and anthropology. The conceptual yield of the historical overview was distilled down to a cluster of four broad themes: the whole developing person-in-context, lived-time, the living body, and an enduring call to pedagogy.

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2001

Psihologija, 2016

Humanistic Contributions for Psychology 101: Growth, Choice, and Responsibility, 2015

"Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) is well known for his work in phenomenology, but his lectures in child psychology and pedagogy have received little attention, probably because Talia Welsh translated the lectures in their entirety only in 2010. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist summarizes Merleau-Ponty’s work in child psychology, shows its relationship to his philosophical work, and argues for its continued relevance in contemporary theory and practice. Welsh demonstrates Merleau-Ponty’s unique conception of the child’s development as inherently organized, meaningful, and engaged with the world, contrary to views that see the child as largely internally preoccupied and driven by instinctual demands. Welsh finds that Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about human psychology remain relevant in today’s growing field of child studies and that they provide important insights for philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists to better understand the human condition." Below is a pdf of the preface.