Talking about personality development as a process is talking about the dynamics of this process, about its various mechanisms. The mechanisms of personality development are indeed diverse. Development can take place in the joint activity of a child and an adult, development can be the result of study or training, development can be the result of resolving internal contradictions, development can be the result of formation — the process of personality development is many-sided and complex.
A process is a dynamics, a flow, and a description of the development of a personality as a process is a description of the ongoing dynamics, its stages and mechanisms.
Development usually occurs in waves, in a spiral, but it can also follow other lines and forms: go straight or undulating, continuous or with delays, cyclically or in the direction of degradation. Development can occur in mandatory steps, it can be specified only by a peak, or it can have several different peaks. See →
More often, the source of development is something external — the upbringing of parents, the influence of the environment, the requirements of professional growth, the challenges of life, but without internal conditions and sources, personal development is impossible. And the reality is interesting because these sources are not always of high quality and often conflict with each other. See →
The growth and development of the individual can be observed, but what turned out to be its cause, its mechanism, still needs to be understood. A variety of processes can stand behind the visible result: once the process of growth proper initiated from within, once the process of development initiated largely from the outside, and once the process of transformation or directed formation … — the reasons can be very different. If we consider the growth and development of the individual in more detail, it is necessary to single out as separate lines and components:
- Growth, cultivation (The boy is gaining weight and slowly getting smarter, gaining his own experience),
- Personal growth (Boy matured into a Man),
- General development (The teacher adds new knowledge and skills to me),
- Personal development (Master taught me to study independently and with desire).
Personal development in practical psychology
The understanding of «personal development» as a complex but predominantly natural process is more characteristic of theoretical psychology. Practical psychology is occupied not with the «natural», but with the artificial, the art of personal growth and development — with what a person can do with himself or how a specialist can help a person: a teacher or a psychologist. The forms of this activity are different, and the names used here are also very different: self-education, personal self-improvement, personal growth trainings, spiritual practices …
When it is said that a person is engaged in self-improvement, it is mainly emphasized that this work is independent, that a person does it himself. If a person writes “I am fond of personal growth”, this may mean that he does not do much on purpose, but he visits psychological (for example) groups and he likes what happens to him there. Personal growth trainings promise (and often deliver) personal growth as a result, although the processes that take place in the training are no longer about growth, but about formation and development. Growth is a long process, and development and formation give faster results…
Sometimes psychotherapy is called a way of personality development, but this is only a consequence of the fact that today people call everything they want both personality development and psychotherapy. If the concept of “personal growth and development” is taken in its strict, narrow sense, then it is relevant only to a healthy person. Positive change in an unhealthy personality is strictly a recovery, not a personal growth. This is psychotherapeutic work, not personal development. In cases where psychotherapy removes barriers to personal growth, it is more accurate to speak not about the process of personal growth, but about psychocorrection.
On the way of growth and development of the individual, various difficulties arise. Firstly, attitudes towards personal growth and development can be very different. Someone around you may note that your gains are also your losses. On the other hand, development is a way out of a comfortable state, for a while you become “not yourself”, while you work out skills-knowledge, you need to control yourself tightly, there is no time for relaxation. This means that every change / movement makes us not ourselves, then a period of embedding something into our lives or consciousness — and again I become myself — only a little different. And that causes tension. raises many internal questions … However, if you know how to work on yourself, you will succeed.