Emotional development concepts and applications

Emotional Development

Well-Rounded Emotional Development as the Key Towards Cultivating a Healthy Self- Esteem

In the study of psychology, Erik Erikson is one of the major proponents who helped develop the domain of socio-emotional development among humans. His studies generated the model of human socio-emotional development, where he proposed the Eight Stages of Development. These stages are enumerated as follows:

Trust vs. Mistrust

Autonomy vs. Shame

Initiative vs. Guilt

Industry vs. Inferiority

Identity vs. Identity Confusion

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Generativity vs. Self-Absorption

Integrity vs. Despair

These stages of socio-emotional development characterize the dichotomous nature that humans undergo during their socio-emotional development. The primary goal that these stages of development depict was that an individual undergoing socio-emotional development learns to reconcile these opposing natures of each stage. That is, as the individual grows older, s/he socio-emotionally develops in the normative pattern proposed by Erikson: an individual who has learned to trust, develop autonomy, developed initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity.

This normative pattern to socio-emotional development is proposed in order to develop an emotionally healthy individual. Inherent in this well-rounded development is the cultivation of an individual with a healthy self-esteem. This paper discusses the influence of well-rounded socio-emotional development to the creation of self-esteem wherein emotional and cognitive development coincides properly together.

According to Branden (2000), self-esteem remains an important concept because "[m]an cannot exempt himself from the realm of values and value-judgments" (113). This being the state of an individual's social landscape, he then becomes susceptible to being influenced by people who considers it important to develop a healthy self-esteem. Self-esteem is influenced by two important factors: the individual's perception of himself/herself and people's perception of the individual. The fusion of these two factors creates the individual's self-esteem; a healthy self-esteem, then, is one that is borne out of a healthy development of the individual as perceived by the self and others.

What makes self-esteem important for the individual is that it gauges his/her will to understand (114). This means that an individual who has self-esteem is one who is willing to understand himself/herself and the experiences s/he encounter everyday in the society. The "will to understand" is a simple concept, yet a complicated process for the individual. Developing the will to understand is to reconcile one's feelings with his/her thoughts about certain issues and topics relevant and significant to him/her (as stated in the earlier paragraph).

This process of developing self-esteem is characterized by the individual's passing through each stage of socio-emotional development. As an individual learns to cultivate self-esteem, s/he must learn to develop trust and autonomy. This means that an individual who has self-esteem must be able to have better judgment and be able to trust other people and himse/herself as well. Similarly, better judgment entails autonomy, or the ability to harbor feelings and create thoughts and opinions independent from other people's thoughts and feelings. It is only by learning to trust and believe in one's ability to become independent that one truly develops self-esteem in the first stages of the individual's socio-emotional development.

As the individual progresses to other stages of his/her socio-emotional development, s/he experiences grater challenges as s/he tries to strengthen his/her self-esteem. Ultimately, the biggest challenge that the person encounters is when s/he approaches the eighth stage, wherein s/he undergoes struggle to achieve integrity or despair in life. This struggle is depicted as follows (in relation to self-esteem development) (117):