Page 34 - Biblical Counseling II

Adulthood
Physical Development: Our physical abilities –
muscular strength, reaction time, sensory
awareness, and cardiac output – all reach the top of
their development by the mid-twenties. Like the
declining daylight after the summer, the decline of
physical abilities begins imperceptibly. Athletes are
often the first to notice. World-class sprinters and
swimmers peak by their early twenties. Women –
who mature earlier than men – also peak earlier.
But most of us – especially those of us whose daily
lives do not require top physical performance –
hardly perceive the early signs of decline. Senses age
later in life, physical decline is noticed, and muscle strength, reaction time, and stamina diminish noticeably.
The body’s disease-fighting immune system weakens, making older people susceptible to pneumonia and
cancer (Myers, 2009). (photo: citifmonline.com)

Cognitive Development: No matter how quick or slow we are at remembering, it seems to also depend on
the type of information we are trying to retrieve. If the information is meaningless – nonsense syllables or
unimportant events – then the older we are, the more errors we are likely to make. If the
information is meaningful, older people’s rich amount of existing knowledge will help them to catch it,
though they may take longer than younger adults to produce the words and things they know. Older people’s
capacity to learn and remember skills also declines less than their verbal recall (Myers, 2009).

Social Development: love, marriage, friends, children, work – all define the “who are you?” question, which
relates to “what do you do?”

Old Age (65-death)
According to author Saul McLeod, “Erik Erikson believed if we see our lives as unproductive, feel guilty about
our past, or feel that we did not accomplish our life goals, we become dissatisfied with life and develop
despair, often leading to depression and hopelessness.

Success in this stage will lead to the virtue
of wisdom. Wisdom enables a person to
look back on their life with a sense of
closure and completeness, and also accept
death without fear. Wise people are not
characterized by a continuous state of ego
integrity, but they experience both ego
integrity and despair. Thus, late life is
characterized by both integrity and despair
as alternating states that need to be
balanced” (McLeod, p. 2, 2018). (photo:
denton.agrilife.org)

Erikson’s theory is just one of many on human development. There are critics and supporters of his theory.
Erikson himself acknowledged his theory is “more a descriptive overview of human social and emotional
development that does not adequately explain how or why this development occurs” (McLeod, p. 4, 2018).
Erikson stressed his work was a “tool to think with rather than a factual analysis. Its purpose then is to
provide a framework within which development can be considered rather than testable theory.” One of the

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