The biodromal concept of human development

The biodromal concept of human development Psychological development on the one hand is characterized by features of permanence and persistence and on the other by movement, through which the individual adapts to changed conditions of life. Falling into routine and habit is a brake on psychological development, and conversely, constant directional change in development is the other extreme, with possible consequences in the form of psychological disorders.

• Psychological development of a person is determined by inherited dispositions (i.e., individual heredity from the person’s ancestors), innate dispositions (i.e., abilities acquired during the person’s prenatal development), and external conditions of development (i.e., the influence of the social, cultural, and natural environment in which one lives and also the type of upbringing and education that a person has received during life).
• Psychological development of a person as movement from a lower (simpler) to a higher (more complex) is an immanent process, in which the lower level of psyche in latent form contains a tendency toward a higher level of psyche. Development proceeds in a spiral. Higher forms of human psychological qualities include all the person’s lower psychological qualities.
• In the process of psychological development, periods, stages, and phases of calmer change alternate with periods of faster, more radical developmental changes in the human psyche.

In the biodromal concept (Greek: bios—life, relation to life; dromos—path), which we have elaborated in several authorial publications, we characterize psychological development both as a process of necessary developmental changes of a given person and as a process of possible growth changes of that person. Developmental changes and growth changes are primarily the result of what a person has learned (assimilated, internalized) and how what he has learned can be applied in his actions and in various activities.

Psychological changes in an adult can be assessed professionally in several ways and according to different criteria. For example, one can rely on findings from psychological methods of examining personality (questionnaire, test, scale, observation, analysis of activity results, analysis and evaluation of behavior, interview, and others). Properties of personality, behavior, and conduct are assessed, and so is the person’s psychological system: intelligence, emotions, motivation, values, goals, and others. It is also possible to capture how psychological changes and in what way they lead to changes in behavior and resulting actions of a given person. Whether psychological change is reflected in decisions and concrete activity and functioning of that person in psychologically important social groups (in the family, at workplaces, social groups, peer groups). Throughout life, depending on life conditions and circumstances, a person changes permanently toward functional or dysfunctional socio-psychological adaptation. This is also reflected in social positivity or social negativity in psychological and social adaptation in groups that are especially significant for a person’s life.

In the case of functional socio-psychological adaptation, a person arrives at adaptive changes in his way of functioning among people. In the case of dysfunctional socio-psychological adaptation, a person arrives at non-adaptive changes in his way of functioning among people. It is evident that adaptive psychological changes help a person become psychologically and socially adapted. Conversely, non-adaptive psychological changes help a person become psychologically and socially non-adapted. Such a state usually has unfavorable consequences, such as physical illnesses, social exclusion, a spiritual crisis linked to loss of meaning in life, mental frustration linked to psychological disorders and illnesses. Human life is movement and change. A person continuously adapts physically, psychologically, and socially. It is highly necessary for both the person and the surroundings that he adapts within and in line with the expectations and prevailing norms of the communities in which he lives. Significant and radical changes in a person’s experiences and behavior occur during life mainly in transitional age periods of life course: for example, in puberty, after the twenties, in the forties, and at the turning point from adulthood to senior age. But transitions on life’s path can also be significant personal decisions, changes in family and work life, significant events, and actions of that person. Significant psychological changes of a person occur in every period of life, from birth to death.

Psychological changes are the accompanying phenomenon in the realization of a person’s inherited and innate psychological potential. They depend on properties of human psyche (human soul), which is characterized by the following properties:

1. Human psyche has a tendency toward its own development and own growth.
2. Human psyche has a tendency toward holistic and orderly self-organization and self-regulation.
3. Human psyche has a tendency to adapt to the conditions of a person’s life.

Psychic life has its basis in the individual potential of a person, that is, in dispositions that are realized during life in the form of psychological properties. A person is expressed through reason, emotion, and actions. Within Koščo’s biodromal concept (1987, p. 55), psychological development is understood as a “process of constantly occurring changes, with potential for growth, enrichment, and change even in adulthood and old age. Thus developmental changes occur in all phases, stages, and all points of the life course. Even in adulthood, up to late phases of old age, substantial changes and reorganization of personality may occur.”

Psychologist P. Říčan expressed himself on the psychological development of a person as follows (2004, pp. 22–25):

1. Development is a sequence of lawful changes that follow in lawful order. This means not every change is developmental. Interventions into bodily and psychological development of persons lead to different typical variants of individual development.
2. Development has ascending stages and descending stages. If one treats development as only an ascending stage, one cannot agree with that. Development is also characterized by a stationary stage (plateau) and a descending stage (involution). Developmental ascent and developmental descent overlap in time. Developmental decline is not only decay—it is an intentional restructuring of the organism and psyche.
3. Two aspects of developmental ascent are differentiation and integration. The process of differentiation means that new psyche-led activities arise by differentiating those the person already possesses. The process of unification—integration—is the linking of parts into one whole. Psyche-led activities, experiencing, and behavior of a person unfold continuously (smoothly) over time.
4. In the process of differentiation and integration, personality structure, that is, inner psychological organization, is refined. Integration has an important role in all age periods of the person. Even in the period of psychological descent (in senior age and old age), a new simplified psychological integration is necessary.
5. Development is initiative, the world is opportunity for development. Initiative for development is given by the genetic program, as well as by who a person becomes in a given environment. Initiative arises both from within the individual—from his psychological needs, motives, conscious intentions—and from outside—from the social needs, motives, and conscious intentions of various social groups (family, institutions, society).
6. Learning, as a mechanism of development, is adaptation to environmental conditions on the basis of experience. A living organism can learn nothing except what it has the corresponding dispositions for (readiness, instinct, genetic program). Because the human genetic program is looser and more open, the person is more adaptable, but as an individual he develops slowly.

2 Psychological development and development of the human person

The views of P. Říčan (2004), J. Koščo (1987), C.G. Jung (1994) agree that individual development is initiative and the world is opportunity for human development. For us, therefore, the question arises: What is development and what is growth of a person? Is it the same life process? Or should one distinguish between the reality expressed by the concept development and the reality expressed by the concept growth? And in our questions we proceed: What is the difference in the meaning of the term psychological development of the person and the term psychological growth of the person? What has priority in the biodromal concept of development: psychological development of a person as an individual, or psychological growth of a person as personality and as individuality? Or is the priority in the biodromal concept of development the holistic psychological development and growth of the person?

For such questions we look for answers by distinguishing “different psychologies” within the original undivided science called Psychology. In distinguishing “psychologies,” we use in this paper the criterion: psychological development of the person.

Among the fundamental psychological sciences belongs developmental psychology, which is divided into phylogenetic psychology and ontogenetic psychology. In free rendering we present the view of M. Nakonečný (2003, p. 53): Developmental psychology studies specifically human psychogenesis, but in relation to anthropogenesis, and also studies individual development, that is, the fetal stage, newborn, infant, toddler, preschool and school-age childhood, adolescence stage, adulthood, and old age.

In accordance with the topic of our paper, Biodromal Concept of Human Development, it is necessary to stress clearly that the subject of biodromal psychology, according to our concept, is not only psychological development, but also psychological growth of the person.

Biodromal psychology does include knowledge of “classical” developmental psychology (including phylogenetic and ontogenetic psychology of the human being), because this knowledge explains the lawful psychological developmental changes of the person. However, the subject of biodromal psychology, respectively life-long developmental psychology, is psychological growth of the person, who psychologically, spiritually, and socially matures to his own psychological advancement. Biodromal psychology addresses the human psyche in adulthood stages (in young, middle, and late adulthood, or in senior age).

A person reaches a certain level of his own maturity thanks to inherited and innate endowments and primarily because he spends his whole life learning to live. He develops these dispositions more or less actively under the influence of upbringing and education. He learns through the senses and movement (sensorimotor), through thinking (cognitive), and through communication (social). He develops his psychological potential in childhood and adulthood on his own and also with help from other people. A person develops as an unrepeatable personality. He creates his unique personal identity and proceeds in becoming aware of himself. He experiences his self and, over the course of life, self-actualizes by carrying out tasks related to particular social roles (as a man or a woman, citizen, partner, father or mother, worker).

“A person is not fundamentally tied to only one mode of life… he is not bound to a single mode of interpreting the world or of interpreting himself.” (B. Šulavíková, 2004, p. 3.) The formation of one’s own identity (M. Marcelli, 2001) presupposes in people their capacity and willingness that they should be aware they are the principal actors of their own life. A person is destined for personality development. If psychologically healthy, he naturally inclines to personal change and tends to live creatively. He is guided by his own image of himself. A part of human self-reflection is identifying with one’s own talent, giftedness, and abilities. People “cannot be dependent only on present reality. Their purpose is to seek their image in mirrors that are not perfectly flat, and therefore they must also base their power to act and strength to exist on visions and dreams.” (B. Šulavíková, 2004, p. 11.)

In the biodromal concept of human development, it is taken into account that changes of a specific person are the result of that person’s unique personal history. In this sense, all periods and stages of a person’s development and growth are equally important and significant. Every life period is characterized by necessary developmental tasks and personality changes of a person, but also by development tasks required of the person and personality changes. A person as a whole being changes and develops permanently over life. In whatever life period, stage, or phase of the life course, a psychological process of individuation (formation of individuality) of the person takes place, that is, his orientation toward psychologically unique advancement, toward realizing his talents to as high a degree as possible. A person, mainly through his own contribution, can reach personality maturity and psychological development. However, the opposite is also true—a person, through his own inactivity and lazy way of life, gives up opportunities for personality development and fails to reach personality maturity and psychological development.

In the work On the Origin of Personality, distinguished analytic psychologist C. G. Jung (1994, p. 64) noted something that directly concerns the biodromal concept of human development and growth: Although objectively psyche (which one cannot otherwise imagine than as a universal and homogeneous human endowment) means the psychic premise of all people, it must be individualized if it is to manifest. Because it has no other option than to express itself through individual persons.

Because each individual has an innate life law, each person also has the theoretical possibility of following this law of individuation above all others, and of becoming a personality, that is, to achieve wholeness.

We only add that individuation is a higher-order process of human development—through which individual people refine themselves according to their personal endowments and external conditions throughout life toward psychological integrity and uniqueness. Under optimal life conditions, a person strives to develop toward his personal progress. He achieves progress by actively participating both in changing himself and in changing the environment in which he lives.

“... life problems are never solved once and for all. If they seem to be solved, it is always a loss. It seems that their meaning and purpose do not lie in solving them, but in working on them continuously. Only this protects us from stiffening and stiffening into rigidity.” (C. G. Jung, 1994, p. 99.)

Author: Prof. PhDr. Mária Machalová, CSc. References

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