The Experience
Though famous psychologists such as Freud claim that early childhood shapes and molds who a person will become the person I interviewed did not have his life changing experience until his mid twenties. This is past the years of infancy, early, middle and late childhood even adolescence. He was a full fledged textbook adult when he experienced a pivotal moment in his life. Certain theories of personality claim that personality is stable, even temperament in infancy can help determine one’s future actions. Yet this event took place after any physiological developments were still taking place. This event caused him to reflect on life and change his actions in profound ways.
I interviewed my father. He is now 57 years old. He has advanced through college, medical school and the requisite to become an interventional cardiologist with no retirement in sight. He has three children, has been divorced and has remarried. Out of all the experiences that he could have said made an impact on his life he chose one that happened while he was in Medical School. It happened when in the midst of doing 3 days rounds with minimal to no sleep. Finally after being up for hours and hours on end, he had fallen asleep around 3 in the morning. Around this time a man had a nosebleed yet did not think anything of it. He had been nauseous and fatigued a day or two earlier but brushed it off as stomach flu and continued with his daily life. Yet as he was trying to hold the tissue to his nose his hands would not stop trembling. He felt his whole body begin to shake falling to floor in a seizure. His wife immediately called 911. Around 4 AM his ambulance arrived at the hospital. An Intern came to wake my father up to help with this patient. Th...
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Greeson et al. (2010) found complex trauma to be a significant predictor on tests for internalizing problems, for PTSD, and for having at least one clinical diagnosis. They recommend a “trauma-informed perspective, because of the negative effects of trauma on an already negatively-affected population” This means catering treatment, considering the client’s experiences and seeking out evidence based approaches to trauma-based treatments.
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... exposed to abusive environments show delays or restrictions in their physical growth as well as in their mental development (Smith, 1975).
Finding a benefit or place to find growth and look forward to where one has come from is beneficial to patients. “Finding benefit in adversity or experiencing persona growth as one deals with the aftermath of stress and trauma has been recognized as common among people experiencing a variety of negative events, including physical illnesses” ( Staton, Bower, Low, 2006 138-175). Transformation folloing a traumatic event required one to reconceptualize their fundamental beliefs about themselves others, and many times their future, producing growth. Growth can include many things, from a renewed sense of strength or courage, an improved outlook on life, a higher appreciation for life, improved relationships with others and development of new life opportunities (Taku, Cann, Calhoun, Tedeschi 2008
The idea that a person’s personality is fully developed during the ages of puberty are being challenged by new research findings that provide evidence that small personality trait changes can still occur throughout an individual’s lifespan (Roberts and Mroczek, 2008). As suggested by Srivastava, John, Gosling, and Potter, (2003), “just as individual differences in personality lead individuals towards different experiences that subsequently affect their personalities, normative changes in personality help prepare people for normative adult roles, which in turn can support further personality changes,”
According to Freud a person's most important period to grow personality ranges from birth to six years. In that span my biggest influences came from my family. When I think of that time before kindergarten, the single most important person to my development was my grandmother Carmen. She didn't graduate from college or sell wheat futures in the stock market, but she had wisdom and tenderness so few possess. My parents worked, so each morning my mother would drop me off at Grandma's house. I didn't realize it then but in retrospect, this woman has led a remarkable. She birthed three sons all by Caesarian section, lost a husband in middle age, and then all but raised a grandson for half a decade. She taught me how to walk and gave me my first piano lessons. She remains close to all her grandchildren yet her and I both know she holds a special place for the first one.
The period of development from adolescence to adulthood offers an abundance of opportunities and confronts (Kroger, 2007). Many theorists argue that an individual’s personality has an increased
Personality is determined both by current experiences and, as the original psychoanalytic theory proposed, by early life experiences