Emotional Development


&
Interpersonal Relationship







It may difficult for a person emotionally unstable to build good interpersonal relationships. The normal emotional development of the child is therefore essential for him/her attaining later in life the capacity of building strong interpersonal relationships and a good functional behavior. Many psychologists have studied the emotional develoment of the child. We will see a brief summary of the work of three of the most proeminent of them. To finish, I will broaden the view to include more about the social aspect of human functionality, narticularly with Maslow





Emotional Development of the Child in the Eyes of Assagioli
It was Assagioli who, having been in the footsteps of Sigmund Freud, saw that the child, as a baby, lives, first, a period of primary narcissism, then develops a secondary narcissism, to end, while becoming an adult, in a period of tertiary narcissism with the choice of his/her beloved partner Then, said Assagioli, this adult knows normally a balanced affective relationship with others that leads to mutual gratification; this can lead further to true altruism, i.e., to unconditional love and concern for others. It is a simple view of the emotional development of the human being but it is full of lessons. We have gone partially through it in the preceding chapter, and it will not be reviewed here.





Emotional Development of the Child According to Erikson
The emotional development of a human being is more elaborate in the theory of Erikson. According to the later, the emotional growth of the human being goes through eight psychosocial and conflictual phases that can interlace, and sexuality plays a minor role in this development (let us not he obsessed by sex!) How well or bad has been the solution of each of these conflicts will determine how the person will bloom socially.
  1. The first conflictual phase is TRUST vs MISTRUST. The new- born, being fragile, is peculiarly sensitive to his environ- ment. However, his/her mother makes him/her confident in his/her first period of extrauterine (extrawomb) life so that he/she will not be, later in life a coward, or ,more precisely an emotionally unstable person. If, by accident, this normal process fails either because the mother (or the nurturant person) is negligent or is rejecting (emotionally) the child, then the worst happens-(cowardice!) (Yes, it is the way heroes are made; it is simple.)
  2. The second phase is INDEPEDENCE vs DEPENDENCE, Now, the baby begins walking, but (uh!) he/she misses a step and fell. What a sorrow for this apprentice! He/she then begins crying, but mother, or, at least, father is there and is hurrying to help him/her. Conforting, isn't it? Then baby begins again. . with the help of mother or father to learn till, at last, it happens to him,...being able to walk alone. However, if by disregard, mother or father is helping too much or (less often) is not helping baby at all, then, the worst...a dependent person ensues, bound to welfare help. During this period, the parents should watch the child closely so that he does not put any suffocking object in his/her mouth that can obstruct his/her airway and kills himself/herself, but baby should be left unbound to explore his/her environment by himself/herself.
  3. The third psychosocial phase of Erikson is INDUSTRY vs INFERIORITY. Now, baby goes to kindergarten. He/she can draw, play by him-/herself, build blocks' tower,.. he/she is, if not eating, busy at doing things and sleeping less; he/she is industrious. It is the only way he/she can learn presently, by doing not by imitating or by following. If ever his/her initiatives are blocked by his/her parents, being too protective or by not finding those intiatives for whatever reason, then the worst can happen, he/she is becoming a failure and can bum around all his/her life (being incompetent, insignificant in his/her doings, and/or socially obnoxious).
  4. The fourth phase of the psychosocial development of the child, as stated by Erikson, is INITIATIVE vs TIMIDITY. Baby, (euh!)...now a grown-up child... is leaving the kindergarten to go to the elementary school. There, he/she will meet more and more kids and will be asked to be more and more in control of himself/herself in his/her new social environment, but if he/she fails as this can happen if his/ her parents or teachers scold him/her much, then the ugly befalls and he/she becomes a timid person, failing in society, or in his/her job, even if he/she does not bum around.
  5. The fifth phase of the psychosocial development in accordance to Erikson is IDENTITY vs ROLE's CONFUSION. Now.. .no more a baby, not even a child, tbe individual has really grownup, reaching the adolescent period, and he/she is somebody who can even challenge his/her father's or mother's authority, but...take it easy! "Dad and Mom are really good people," says the child "and I depend much upon them, so let mo do like them and do what they want; maybe I will be learning more," he/she finally agrees.
    However, this is not so easy since "Dad is the husband of Mom and Mom is the wife of Dad, and... they have sex" are those unconscious feelings that bother the adolescent. It is thus not easy for the boy to be like his father or for the girl to be like her mother and this is even more than what those children thought priorly since, at the same time, he will have to overcome the Oedipus complex - the love of his mother - and she will have to overcmome the complex of castration - the wish to be like her father. If ever one or the other child fails in his/her search for a sexual identity, then tteir marital life or any stable sexual union with the opposite gender may fail when those children will reach adulthood.
  6. The sixth phase of Erikson's stages of psychosexual development is INTIMICY vs ISOLATION. This stage comes at the end of the adolescence and may last till the old age, habitually when the adult retires. It is also often mixed with another stage--GENERATIVITY vs STAGNATION. The person is then a productive person; he/she can be teaching others, caring for them, making goods for them, etc.. He/she is also more capable of having children and of taking care of them, having learned more in his/her life and having become less impulsive; those are the qualities for attaining good intimacy with others. The consensual cohabitation between husband and wife is the crowning of such intimacy between a man and a woman. On the other hand, discontent and destructiveness may prevail and leads to isolation and to social crimes.
  7. The final phase of Erikson's stage of the psychosexual development of the individual is SERENITY vs DESPAIR. Now the person is old enough to contemplate his/her death but not necessarily to be unproductive. (In the Japanese society, for example, the "senior" citizen has been productive in his/her community till his/her death.) Indeed, at this stage, even if he does not have any more the muscular power he has before and the power of mind to be an inventor, he/she can still be a good counselor having become more prudent in life after many years of living experience. Tf however,it happens that he/she stumbles or sto~s at any of the preceding stages, then he/she can become despaired and uncomfortable at the approach of his/her death for having accumulated much emotion at any of the preceding stages.
Whether or not any of the living period corresponding to those psychosocial staqes has been well or badly lived, the per- sonality of the individual will be more and less developed,more or less affected, and he/she will be either a functional or a dysfunctional person; there are also many degrees of functionality or of dysfunctionality, depending how well those stages have been passed. Very often, the better or the worse resolution of any of those stages is linked primarily to the childhood period, or, more precisely, to the parent-child relationship during the early life and to the familial cell (as we have seen it). Less often, it is linked to some social and fortuitous discomfort, such, for example, as a high level of violent crimes, a revolution, etc..





Freud's Psychosexual Stages of the Emotional Development of the Child
The analysis of Sigmund Freud is mostly based on sexuality (this cannot be ignored); therefore, the stages of the emotional development of the child are qualified as pychosexual.


The first stage is the ORAL STAGE. During this stage the zone of maximal sensual stimulation is the mouth and the lips, and this helps the newborn to nourrish himself. So it's "nature." Since the nipple of the mother is also for her an erogenous (sensual) zone, she enjoys breast-feeding her child (it is also nature). Thus, the mother and her child are linked in some psychosexual (sensual) pleasure, which if, for any reason, is disturbed can lead to an emotionally unstable child and somewhat to a dependent person or to a complaining or recriminatory one.

The second stage is the ANAL STAGE that goes from 2 to 4 years, when baby is at the kindergarten. Having been weaned of his/her mother's breast,the child has no more his/her lips being stimulated by the nipple of his/her mother; this ends the maximal oral pleasure he/she has had while feeding him-/herself and the oral stage. However, he/she does still have some great pleasure in defecating, in voiding his/hex bowel- (it's again Nature), till he/she is forced to control himself to be accepted by the society. If ever, he has been badly forced to do so or, at the opposite end, has been left "unleashed" (a rarer event), at this period, he/she can develop either into a sadic person (liking to hurt people mentally or physically}, a masochist one (liking to be tortured) a sado-masochist one (having both wishes) or a disordered person (either in his/her behavior or in any act in his/ her life) such are an alcoholic, a drug addict and/or a (social) bum.

The third phase of the emotional developement of the child is the PHALLIC STAGE that goes from 5,6 or 7 to12, 13 or 14 years. Having lost both the early and maximal oral pleasure in feeding him-/herself and the early and maximal anal pleasure in defecating him-/herself, the child still have his/her external sexual parts (penis and vagina primordially, and then later the breast) that are very pleasurable and as they grow in size, they become more and more sensitive and pleasurable. Because he/she has no sexual act (coit), it is only the protuding part of those sexual organs - the glans (tip) of the penis for the boy and the vaginal lips and the clitoris for the girl- that are accidentally or voluntarily stimulated by their caregivers. Therefore, this stage is called the phallic stage to distinguish it from the next one. If ever, for any reason, the child is abused - materializing thus the Oedipal myth - or has been made afraid or complexed about these parts - nourishing thus the complex of castration - or if he cannot get a true and balanced parental love (particularly from the mother), then he is likely to be stopped at this stage of his psychosexual development. He/She will thus be stunted emotionally and will be less likely to succeed in the familial or social life than his/her normal peers.

The fourth phase of the psychosexual development of the child is the GENITAL STAGE that goes from adolescence to death. Normally, the society allows and encourages an adult to have sexual relationship with another adult of the opposite sex. Because, during the sexual act, the penis of the man penetrates the vagina of the woman and because this could lead to the birth of a child, this stage is called the genital stage (from the latin, "genitus" (past of "gignere"): to beget). Normally, this stage is less likely to be disturbed than the others, and it is also less likely to lead to a significant psychosexual stunted growth than the precedent ones. Nevertheless, any disturbance of this stage can prevent a normal family life and a normal sexual relationship particularly between partners of opposite sex but not necessarily a normal psychoaffective life, and the individual may be well balanced emotionally.

As you can see it, for Freud the success of somebody in society, his functionality, is mostly related to his affective or sexual life and less to his intelligence or to any other thing; however (remember that) , man is only an animal and, perhaps, it is why sex prevails in his development. It is, at last and again, the way of "Nature!"





Hierarchy of our Social Needs in Maslow's Eyes


 While the authors that we have seen, since then, have considered only or mostly the individual and emotional growth of men, a growth that is fairly parallel to but not dependent of their physical growth, Maslow considered mostly the growth of their social needs; this growth has no specific chronolgy and there is no time-table for it. It happens mostly when our lower or primordial needs are satisfied. It might seem, at the first view,that this has nothing to do with a people developing good interpersonal relationship, but indeed it has, as we are going to see it.

At first, our primordial needs must be satisfied; those needs are for feeding, clothing and sheltering ourselves; They are material needs and thus are mostly primordial; they must then be fulfilled before the individual can move to a higher level. We cannot live withouth food. Similarly it will be hard, these days, for anyone of us to live withouth clothes and withouth shelters. Man, since his apparition on Earth, has always looked for these needs which are basic to him and are much linked to the other two next levels of his social needs.

Indeed, man needs also and urgently protection and safety in the environment and from the community he lives in and, thus, the need for God or for the gods who protect the community and the need for justice is justified. It is why he lives in groups and it is also why his community has also a police force or an army. Those needs are also vital to him, even if they are somewhat less crucial than the first ones, and they are so since he was a baby, needing the protection and the caring of his parents to survive in a world which he is not yet prepared to master or even to deal with.

The next other level of human needs is the needs for friendship, for loving, for belonging or for sharing and, thus, the need for a village or for a nation and the need for laws that rule efficiently the community. Man is mostly a social animal; he is nevertheless not the only one; birds and bees are also very social animals and most mammals and fishes are. Those needs are particularly necessary for the protection or the conservation of the species while the basic needs were for that of the individuals. Those needs even it they are less vital to man than the first two groups are really thus important to him. To express such a relationship between the diverse needs, it is usual to build a pyramid, the Maslow's pyramid inside of which are placed the needs in their hierarchical order, from the basic ones at the basis of the pyramid to the less crucial ones at its tip. Baby will surely be sick and very sick withouth the love of his mother even if the other and basic needs (food and safety, for example) are filled.

Many dysfunctional behaviors can also be explained by a lack or a perversion of these needs of the third level; they can also explain, as well as the others seen with the other authors, the genesis of the mental illnesses or of any dysfunctional behavior in our society.

The last level is the intellectual needs. These needs are not specific to the human race, at least in their lower forms, since many are less or more evident in some other animals These are:
  • the need to know, the need of knowledge or more generally the need to explore the environment we live in; in its highest form it is also the need to create or for creativity in order to benefit the most from the environment (this higher form of the social needs is also evident among the chimpanzees)
  • the need of honour; this might look peculiar to us, however this need is intimately bound to that for domination which is also encountered among the animals and which is the consequence of the evolution of the living beings and is linked to the apparition of social life among them; only the strongest will survive or will have a progeniture; in its highest form, this need is also the need for self-respect and for dignity and, in its moderate form, the need for self-assertion*;
  • the need for freedom which is, for the other animals, the need to jump freely in the prairy land; such a need is somewhat related to to those of feeding and of survival; in its highest form, it is the need for democracy or the need for us to choose freely the governement that will respond the best to our other and more crucial needs.






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* A big obstacle to good interpersonal relationships often comes from too much self-disclosure that blocks our understanding of our interlocutor;
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