Biological age does not always coincide with psychological age. According to the passport, we are adults, but inside lives a helpless child or an eccentric teenager. So what is psychological age, how it happens, what it depends on and whether it is worth “growing up,” says psychologist and expert in personal development Sergey Artemyev.
Psychological age is most often understood as the level of personality development, the internal state in which your psyche is frozen. As a rule, this stuckness is associated with an event that you could not survive, with a problem in the past that you could not solve. For example, they experienced a hard divorce of their parents, lost something familiar and important, became a victim of moral or physical violence.
All this affects the psychological age. What can he be?
baby
In many areas of life, a person reacts and acts like a child who is 3 to 7 years old. Often, when faced with problems, he feels guilty, helpless, weak, worthless, or, on the contrary, feels unjustifiably omnipotent or responsible for everything. A psychological “child”, no matter how old he is according to his passport, needs someone big, accomplished, strong, who can “take it in his arms” next to him. This big one will either protect and lead, or he needs protection and help.
What to do?
- Learn to make decisions on your own, first in small things.
- Listen to yourself, look for your strengths and use your abilities at work, gaining experience, money and stability in return.
- Give yourself what you don’t have. Hugging yourself, taking care of yourself, giving yourself gifts, building healthy relationships with people.
- To let people go, not to strive to solve any problems for everyone, to give others freedom.
Parental
Such a person is characterized by the behavior of a child aged 8 to 12 years. This is the time when the child learns parental patterns of upbringing, communication with the world. How do parents communicate with children? Not always like with adults. Therefore, he feels superior to others: he teaches, punishes, encourages. He does “the right way” and “the right way”, forgetting about how you want.
Psychological «parents» can be «submissive» and «authoritarian». The “yielding” follow the lead of the “children”, “spoil” them, encouraging permissiveness, unscrupulousness and chaos. «Authoritarian» suppress children’s impulses, spontaneity, sincerity. They build rigid boundaries, forbid, deprive the “child” of the right to choose and independence. They say the right thing, use threats and violence.
What to do?
- Go beyond authoritarian or yielding behavior, even if it is learned from childhood.
- Learn from books and other people’s example, how to interact with people and raise their own children.
- Let loved ones make their own decisions.
- Set healthy boundaries, participate in the lives of loved ones in an environmentally friendly way, and not from a position of violence or permissiveness.
teenage
Such people cannot outgrow the age of 13 to 20 years. Adolescent personality dynamics is self-discovery, separation, rebellion, protest. “I decide for myself”, “I will not be like you, I am different”, “I will find those who understand me, I don’t need you”, “I will do what I want”. When the physical age is between 13 and 20, this behavior is helpful. It forms the necessary experience and eventually leads to maturity.
It is more difficult if a person turns into a teenager when he is over 30, and sometimes over 40, when there are children, family, business or work. It is in this state that they leave the family, cheat, leave everything and go looking for themselves. A person wants to regain his teenage freedom, if in his youth he was responsible for too much and did not have time to live for his own pleasure. It also happens differently. A person is so accustomed to a carefree life that, even growing up, he cannot make a commitment. Family, business, children — everything seems boring, gray, dull.
What to do?
- Learn constancy in relationships: in friendship, in love, in partnership.
- Listen to the needs of other people.
- Look for the right balance of intimacy, not be afraid to let you in and open up.
- Come up with ways to make everyday life diverse, filled, active.
Adult
At this psychological age, a person can combine the positive aspects of all the listed ages, draw resources from them, and integrate them into life. He is characterized by purity, the immediacy of a “child”, and caring, the ability to share, set the boundaries of a “parent”, and energy, activity, interest in the life of a “teenager”, and the ability to show all this depending on time, place and circumstances.
An adult is fine alone and fine with someone. He knows what he wants, but does not depend on his «Wishlist». He knows how to let go, but he also knows how to appreciate what he has. An adult relies on himself, but in a difficult situation he can ask for help. He feels like a part of the world, but understands his peculiarity.