Psychological maturity is a complete, accomplished psychological development of a person, free and flexible use of the main personal tools. Psychological maturity is not about the life path as a whole (personal maturity manages this), but about the ability to behave appropriately in specific situations.
The ability to be a self-cause in a particular situation, awareness of responsibility for actions, the ability to adequately change one’s situational behavior, the ability to refuse to be right in a discussion and recognize the correctness of the interlocutor, to control one’s emotions.
It is necessary to speak with caution about the psychological maturity of a person from the position of an outside observer (it is easy to make a mistake, people “love” to play roles and be “in character”), in addition, people change. As a first approximation, you can specify some (by no means all) more or less general criteria that rather speak of psychological maturity.
- To be a self-cause in different life situations, i.e. live and act in a situation based on their own values, rules and beliefs, moral and ethical standards, but it is also necessary to be able to correlate them with the laws and cultural norms that exist in a given society, country, culture. See First Perceptual Position
- Awareness of your personal responsibility for your own actions, plus an understanding of their meaning, being aware of why you do (or do not do) this or that in your life. And, accordingly, the acceptance “at his own expense” of all the consequences of these in his life (both those that satisfy him and those with which he is dissatisfied) — as generated primarily by the person himself, his desires, thoughts, aspirations, and not his uncle, external the environment, the government, some higher forces beyond its control, and so on. See Victim Position
- Understanding the relativity of one’s worldview, as well as the worldview of other people. Hence the tolerant attitude towards other points of view, while at the same time the ability not to give up one’s own without special reasons. As well as readiness to change their knowledge, their picture of the world. See categorical
- Flexibility. Willingness and ability (but not obligatory!) to change one’s behavior in accordance with the existing environment and available conditions in order to be more adequate to the given moment (including in order to better understand what is happening).
- In the emotional sphere, possession of two skills at the same time — the ability to always be in the right state and the ability to separate oneself from one’s states and moods. When needed, I am emotion. In another situation, my emotion is one thing, and I am another.
- In the rational realm, the same is true. There are my thoughts, my reflections, my position, my opinion, they belong to me, not I to them. Moreover, a lot of things were imposed on me or «got» to me by accident — and therefore I can change, supplement, or refuse it if necessary. This develops immunity against ossification, rigidity of thinking, dogmatism, fanaticism and other isms.