I describe myself as an Adult Developmental Psychologist, acting as a catalyst for others’ developmental process. As infants become children, children become adolescents and adolescents become adults, adults can continue to evolve through additional, more advanced, stages of adult development. However, unlike earlier developmental stages which unfold naturally, advanced adult development requires intention and effort. Like it requires heat to transform water in a container to produce steam, the psyche requires a method (the container) focused intention (the fire) to produce a more expanded awareness of “self” (steam). Historically these more advanced stages of development have been described in spiritual terms such as, “Enlightenment”, “Higher Power”, “Satori” “Christ consciousness”, “Buddha Nature, or Witness Consciousness”. As a Psychologist, I see them as a natural result of adult maturation, which involves the development of a more expanded sense of Self, resulting in more Compassion, Calmness, Clarity, Acceptance, Wisdom, greater comfort in one’s own sense of well-being and greater security in one’s inner sense of Self.
Descriptions of these states of being frequently suggest they lie outside of normal, “ordinary” adult experience or “sense of Self”. It is exactly, our “sense of Self”, which goes through the process of change, like when, as adolescents, we experienced a shift in our “sense of self” once we experienced ourselves as having become “Adult”. While it is true that there are states of awareness outside of “normal adult experience”, the unfolding of our individual life is the pathway for our potential to experience these more advanced states of awareness along the way, in the same way that the potential to experience falling in love and sexual eroticism is available to all of us, although me may not know that potential existed until after we actually experience the ecstasy of eroticism or of falling in love.
Kathleen Singh in “The Grace of Living” (http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Grace-in-Living/Kathleen-Dowling-Singh/9781614292852) shows us that we all have had moments of awakening to a more expanded sense of awareness, beginning in early childhood. Can you recall an experience which may have been confusing at the time because they it was so different from ordinary awareness, so expansive, or loving or connected that you remember it even until today? According to Dr. Singh these are early moments of recognition of the Self which we can strive to achieve as a permanent stage for identity later on in life.
For example, the foundation of the 12 Step Programs rests on acceptance of Higher Power as the source of inner directedness. When people choose to live their lives by seeking to listen to and align with the voice and guidance of that Higher Power they are going beyond the ego as they attempt to maintain sobriety. They are operating at a more advanced stage of adult development as they experience the value of receiving the guidance of that higher power.
I believe that we are all on the path of psychological and spiritual development, whether we know it or not, as an infant is on the way to becoming an adult whether she/he knows it or not. But, as not every acorn becomes and oak tree and not every tadpole becomes a frog, not every adult matures into these more advanced stages of Self-awareness.
I welcome your questions and comments at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com or call in live on Mondays, 4:30 to 5:30 PM Pacific time, so we can discuss it on the air.
Many Blessings
Doc Wolf