Developmental Hope Springs Eternal

September 26, 2022 People can and do develop throughout their lives. Unless circumstances are quite dire, the potential for development does not expire. Let's be optimistic!

Hello It’s Complex Readers,

I hope you had a not-too-complex two weeks. This week’s newsletter is about human development and builds on the last newsletter, which was about how we develop through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes as we participate with others in cultural activities. In case you missed it, or want to read it again, here is the last newsletter:

Please keep telling anyone and everyone about It’s Complex. Thank you!

A Reminder for Familar Readers and an Orientation for New Readers

Here at It’s Complex we think about and deal with the world’s many complexities—from global issues to individual experiences. The world sure is a complex place, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. We end up glossing over complexity and postpone thinking about it. But much is at stake for humanity and for individuals. Let’s stop postponing; let’s embrace complexity and deal with it. At It’s Complex, we think about and deal with complexity from a holistic systems perspective. A system is a wider whole made up multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about and deal with any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality (M), connectedness (C), and dynamics (D). I like to abbreviate them as MCD. Think MCD, be MCD!

• Multidimensionality refers to how complex phenomena are made up of multiple parts.

• Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which complex phenomena are connected or linked. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness, which refers to mutual and reciprocal connections between and among parts and wholes.

• Dynamics refers to how system processes are ongoing and can be played out in stable ways, as well as in varied, changing, and sometimes unpredictable ways.

For further details (or as a refresher), check out some of the first newsletter posts.

Newsletter: Developmental Hope Springs Eternal

Understanding people from a developmental perspective is in keeping with understanding complex phenomena dynamically, which promotes understanding people as always open to change, including developmental change. In the newsletter about how development happens, I made the point that developmental hope springs eternal. I think that point is worth considering some more because it strikes such a positive and optimistic tone for people as they go about their lives in all corners of the world. Do you see yourself as a work in progress? How about some of your friends? As works in progress, we can still develop and we may never be fully finished doing so. Thinking systemically about how development happens provides tools for fostering people’s development throughout the lifespan and in varied circumstances.

Developmental hope springs eternal because development is not set in stone, meaning in part that development is not pre-ordained. It was not pre-ordained that you developed as you did and your future development is also not pre-ordained. A person can change developmental course and potentially go off in varied developmental directions. It is thus possible for people to develop more effective ways of acting than they may be engaging in currently. Or people can develop ways of acting, skills, or abilities that are more conducive to their well-being than they may be engaging in currently. If it were not possible to develop in these ways, why bother with therapy or counseling? Developmental hope also springs eternal because development can and does occur at any time during the lifespan. There is thus at least the potential for development. Unless circumstances are really dire, development is just about always possible.

Sometimes, people try to develop in particular ways and some make professions out of helping people to develop. Of course, it is not so easy. Even when people try mightily to develop, they do not always succeed. By thinking systemically about how development happens in terms of interrelated and dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes, we have some tools for fostering our own and others’ developmental change. You can begin by identifying a goal or goals of development for some way of acting, and then analyze how a person is doing with regard to that goal. You can go on to analyzing how some of the person’s ways of acting are organized. That is, how are the parts of action differentiated and integrated, or not differentiated and integrated? What aspects of the person’s action could be further differentiated or refined and integrated to achieve the developmental goals? Then, you can think about how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes could be structured to promote the person’s development. For example, what could the person contribute to their own development? How can others build on what the person can currently do and guide them in relation to the developmental goals? How can cultural and environmental processes be structured to promote their development?

Don’t Give Up on People

In addition, understanding people in terms of developmental possibilities opens up constructive ways of addressing behavior that may be deemed problematic. It also opens up possibilities for people who do not seem to have developed according to some cultural standards or expectations. They are not necessarily hopeless cases. Developmental hope thus springs eternal and we are not giving up on people. That drug addict can develop; that student who is failing in school can develop; that hoodlum can develop; that _______ (fill in the blank with any adjective you want) person can develop. Rather than punishing someone in order to prevent future problematic action, the focus could be on figuring out how to help them develop new ways of acting.  For example, one could provide opportunities for them to participate in cultural practices with others in ways that enable them to develop. One could guide them in ways that promote differentiation and integration in relation to varied goals of development. You can think about how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes could be structured to promote and support the person’s development. And then, try to implement those supports.

In 1998, Susan Burton founded A New Way of Life in Los Angeles to provide a safe, sober, and supportive community for women to live in upon release from prison (Burton & Lynn, 2017).  Burton herself spent 15 years going in and out of prison, and explains that

women take their first step of freedom at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Los Angeles…It’s nothing like the freedom you’d dreamed about in your cell.  This freedom smells of urine and stale beer. Lingering to check out the new releases are pimps and drug dealers…You can almost touch the desperation, the doom in the air. You can feel it on you.  On your prison-issue clothes. Everyone recognizes the ill-fitting clothes stitched by inmates…Ego tells you you’re a grown woman. But you’re scared. How do you calm yourself? How do you connect with something healthy and hopeful when you’re surrounded by Skid Row? When you haven’t been allowed to make a decision in five, ten, twenty years (pp. 3-5)?

It seems to me that A New Way of Life provides formerly incarcerated women with opportunities to develop new ways of acting that enable them to decide, get jobs, regain custody of their children, and stay out of prison. Developing new ways of acting is possible, and can be actualized through participating in cultural activities with others who guide in ways that facilitate developmental change. Guided participation could promote progress toward goals, as well as differentiating among and integrating the parts that are involved in deciding, getting and keeping a job, and regaining and maintaining custody. Although it may not be stated in the terms I am using here, this basic principle is practiced in many settings, from youth programs, to drug and alcohol treatment programs, to counseling centers, to prison release programs.

There was a time when developmental hope did not spring eternal for individuals with Down syndrome. In the United States, they were not out and about much, and they were sometimes abandoned in dreary institutions. According to the National Association for Down Syndrome, “During the first half of the twentieth century in the United States, the majority of children with Down syndrome were placed in institutions – frequently soon after birth” (http://www.nads.org/about-us/history-of-nads/). There seemed to be no developmental hope at all for them. But some families resisted and rejected institutionalizing their children. Advocacy by and for families with Down syndrome children ensued, along with changing cultural attitudes and public policies (e.g., the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). Developmental hope was springing. Individuals with Down syndrome are no longer hidden—they can be seen out and about in varied settings. We see them in schools, in jobs, and on TV. They act in their particular ways and may face challenges that others do not. However, with opportunities to participate in cultural activities with others, they develop skills and ways of acting that were previously unimaginable. As they participate with others in cultural activities, they are developing through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes.

The example of Down syndrome is also instructive for what it tells us about genes. Down syndrome is a genetic condition that is caused by an extra 21st chromosome. The development of individuals with Down syndrome shows that the genetic condition of Down Syndrome can be mitigated by the structuring of other processes that constitute action and development. In other words, the genetic condition is expressed differently today than in the past in relation to the changed structuring of other processes that constitute action and development. In addition, we see that even when one process through which action and development emerge is quite salient, the others are still there, doing what they do. Genes do not determine outcomes by themselves, and genetic expression is not set in stone. Whew, what a relief! Developmental hope springs again.

Actually, what a relief for all of the processes that contribute to how development happens. None of them determines development either single-handedly or independently. None is set in stone. And so, developmental hope springs eternal.

Mutual Empathic Understanding

And, adding to this positive hopeful note about development I think that understanding people developmentally can promote mutual empathic understanding. At the very least, people can think about how they and others all developed through participation experiences that involve individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. In doing so, they may see that they have had some similar developmental experiences. And even if they did not have similar specific developmental experiences, we still all developed through participating in cultural activities with others. Talking to each other in the common language of guided participation, along with individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes, could provide a basis for starting to understand how people got to be the way they are. In addition, understanding someone developmentally means finding out about their particular developmental experiences—how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes were particularized for them as they developed and as they continue to develop. Doing so comprises understanding and treating people empathically because one is entering into and taking seriously a particular person’s complex developmental experience. And if you are concerned with helping people to develop, engaging in empathic developmental understanding could be useful because it involves building on how a particular person’s action is structured, in ways that are suitable for that person.

Some Questions to Think and Comment About

            What do you think? What interested you, what surprised you, what struck you?

            How could you help someone to develop?

            How is developmental hope springing for you? How can you develop?

            What questions do you have about any of this?