Explain why having a working knowledge of development or a “developmental template” is useful to helping professionals.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Helping professionals who emphasize development in their work bring an awareness that persons grow and change over time and that their capacities and concerns also shift over the life course. As noted in the text book, many writers have called for a rethinking of diagnostic taxonomies as well to make them more developmentally and sensitive. They claim that diagnostic classification systems need to include a comprehensive understanding of the way people grow and adapt, for better or for worse, to their changing circumstances. Lerner (1996) argues a developmental focus allows helping professionals to consider ways to support developmental transitions to later life stages by taking steps to promote a caring network.

Specific developmental theories such as Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Freud’s psychosexual stage theory, and Kohlberg’s moral development theory assist helping professionals to understand the developmental underpinnings of their profession and advocate for a contextualized perspective on client functioning. We can see that developmental knowledge is evident in the emerging field of applied developmental science, which has begun to synthesize and apply the findings of developmental psychology to the solution of real-world problems. Noam’s (1992, 1998), takes a developmental and constructivist approach to the study of disorders in his therapeutic approach called developmental psychopathology, which blends developmental knowledge with clinical practice. Noam uses developmental knowledge as a kind of metatheory that helps counselors integrate the problems presented by the “person-in-situation” and limits the reliance on treatments for isolated problems. Noam argues that the developmental approach is useful in addressing immediate difficulties, but has the additional benefit of anticipating what clients will need at later points in their growth. Knowledge of developmental science also helps clinicians distinguish normal developmental “bumps” or mishaps from real deviations in development, which allows them to make more effective interventions.