Looking Back and Moving Forward
MODULE 1.3
SEEDS FOR REFLECTION: Consider the following as you reflect on personal experiences, observations, and thoughts: attachment, fixation, conflict resolution. Am I better able to explain and understand the perceptions, behaviors, responses to certain circumstances of: a) others and b) myself?
Being exposed to new learnings such as those from Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, Freud’s Psychosexual Development Theory, and Erikson’s Psychosocial Development Theory made me fathom why I am who I am at present. Each of the stages that I have experienced all led to the way I live and interact with the environment around me.
I have always been attached to my family, especially to my sister. Although I appreciate this since we are unlike other siblings who often fight and who do not genuinely enjoy each other’s company, I did not look deeper into why we were exceptionally close with each other. This is also the case in our relationship with our parents. In contrast to some families who only see each other when necessary or spend their leisure time individually, we often do things as a family regardless of our differences in fields of interest or ages. Looking back to my early years when I was a baby, I believe that my family’s and my own actions play a part in creating a consistently healthy attachment within our family. Even though I was still little, I was already able to recognize my parents’ and my sister’s voice and smell. They told me that sometimes when a family member is not around, having that person’s clothing near me is enough to make me feel safe.
My attachment with my family is stronger than with any other people whether they are relatives or family friends. This may be why when I was baptized, I cried right away when I was passed on to the priest and to my godparents. I believe that my attachment with them is indeed deep because even in my sleep, I always touch or feel around for where they are by putting my feet on them just to make sure that they are present and that they are with me. Even though I wanted to be with them day and night when I was little, I was still able to grow older and be independent. Whenever my parents go to work or my sister to school, I was already capable of being patient in anticipating their return and joining in sending them off since I am aware that at the end of the day I will be with them when they come home.
On the subject of fixation, I personally view Freud’s propositions as unusual, likely because my experiences did not align with them. Nevertheless, I believe that there are no problems with the way I have developed in terms of the stages set by his theory. I grew up in a sheltered and caring environment at home, which is why my oral, anal, and phallic stages were encountered without complications. For instance, I did not experience forceful feeding during my oral stage and my potty training was not harshly administered. I was given sufficient autonomy in choosing my actions all while being under considerate guidance. My phallic stage was also not irregular since my relationship with my family, especially my parents, is not unusual in the manner tackled on Freud’s theory. Although I am already 17 years old and am supposed to be at the genital stage, I believe that I am still currently undergoing the latent stage where social interactions are made and where societal activities are being developed, largely due in part to my upbringing as the youngest in the family where I am encouraged to focus on my own development instead of adhering to societal expectations of having opposite-sex relationships at this age.
In my psychosocial development, I have already gone through four stages and am currently at the fifth stage, identity vs. role confusion. Throughout the stages that I have previously been through, there were varying circumstances that I experienced both as I encountered a certain stage and as I moved on to another. My trust vs. mistrust stage when I was little was more towards the side of trust due to the healthy environment that I am exposed to, but when I grew older I experienced having some mistrust in most people outside of my immediate family since there are some people who I found to not be healthy individuals to spend time with. My second stage of psychosocial development can be considered balanced between autonomy vs. shame and doubt because I was able to be independent both through freedom to explore on my own and through some minor scolding coming from a perfectionist streak running in the family.
When it comes to the initiative vs. guilt stage, I believe that this was a major help in molding me into becoming an individual with initiative. This skill helped me have an easy time in managing positions with regard to leadership and management of tasks, which opened various opportunities for me both inside and outside school. Similar to the second stage in this development, the fourth stage is also balanced in my experience. This is because I am often confident with my abilities since there are also plenty of opportunities and accomplishments that I have experienced in different fields so far. Nonetheless, I still feel inferior at times whenever I feel incapable of performing certain tasks or skills. This is likely related to my experience in the previous stage, wherein I sometimes experienced admonishment for certain failures. At present, I am still experiencing changing circumstances in the stage of identity vs. role confusion, but I am certain that I will be able to undergo this stage successfully through my own efforts and through my family's liberal style of guidance.
Going through introspection using these different theories as lenses allows me to gain deeper insights into how my personality was formed as early as when I was not yet even conscious of myself and my own actions. It is a reminder that my development is both my and my environment’s responsibility. As such, I am now relatively more aware of which aspects of my memories, experiences, and environmental exposure need to be given attention to in order to address or improve specific parts of my personality. For instance, I can better understand the root of my occasional self-doubt to have stemmed from fear of correction that was instilled in me early in childhood so I can slowly work on being more consciously open to this kind of feedback. On the other hand, I am able to have greater appreciation for the upbringing that my family conscientiously exerted effort on providing in order to help me develop as a healthy individual with very minimal traumas or untoward fixations. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child. Through understanding the origins and paths of growth taken by my development, I am able to see the contributions of others around me as well as comprehend the underlying motivations in their interactions with me. Knowing that these theories also apply to their own development, I can be more understanding of the overlaps and differences in our personalities. This brings forth an awareness that these did not come out of nowhere or worse, out of malice, but due to many stages of development in our lives that were built on top of each other to produce complex and unique personalities.
