Case Study of Human Development

Case Study of Human Development

Anne is a 22-year-old Caucasian female currently enrolled in college. She is enrolled as a full time student majoring in Criminal Justice. She lives in a single room on campus and is three hours away from her family. She is currently in the Later Adolescence stage of development and is dealing with several different life issues.

During the previous life stage, Early Adolescence, several developmental tasks had to be dealt with by the subject. While physical maturation was going on Anne had problems with severe acne and had no real growth spurt. To this day she remains only five feet tall. Her development of formal operations came at a normal rate for adolescence. However, during these years her emotional development led to a bout of depression. She did not have many friends and would therefore sit home only many nights. This lead to difficulty finding a peer group to fit into. Once she found a group of friends to join she started dating. Anne became sexually involved with her first boyfriend and became pregnant. She decided that it would be best to terminate the pregnancy and continue on with school.

The psychosocial crisis for this life stage is group identity versus alienation. Anne started this stage alienated from society. She did not have any real friends and was often by herself. Toward the end of this stage she began to identify with a group a people who became her friends. Because she had been alienated from society previously she fell prey to peer pressure in order to remain a member of the group. She was pressured into having sex, which led to the pregnancy. All of these factors led to the core pathology of dissociation. She has trouble keeping friends and i...

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...ess. She has combined her own beliefs with those of society to form her own unique person.

The Prime Adaptive Ego Quality is fidelity, while the Core Pathology is repudiation. Anne is moving more toward the Prime Adaptive Ego Quality of fidelity. She is ready to be in a committed relationship and get married. At this point in her life if she were to get pregnant again she would keep the baby and make a life for themselves. She is prepared to give herself to someone else.

I believe that Anne is prepared to deal with whatever life has to offer. When she reaches early adulthood she will not have any problems with the Psychosocial Crisis of intimacy versus isolation. I also feel that she will choose the Prime Adaptive Ego Quality of love over the Core Pathology of exclusivity. Overall Anne is developing normally and will continue on the right path from now on.