Humans progress through stages of development throughout the lifecycle. From zygote to embryo to birth, our organs, systems, and appendages develop and differentiate in a predictable and marvelous unfolding. Through infancy, toddlerhood, puberty, adolescence and so forth, nature pushes us toward the next stages in life, typically when normal without derailment or stagnation. Yet there are many factors, interruptions, and obstacles that can stall or malign normal development. Genetic and environmental influences collude to determine our outcomes and the extent to which development proceeds normally and healthily.
Developmental changes are physical and psychological. Whereas certain features of aging are visible and/or easily measurable through medical tests (e.g., arterial or organ damage, metabolic disorders, wrinkles, thinning and whitening hair, changes in muscle mass, etc.), other developmental trajectories (such as emotional conditions) are less pronounced.
Psychological development and status can be ascertained through objective measurements, observations and interactions, and a person’s general levels of functioning and ability to adapt. Stunting or malfunction of physiological growth is usually observable and traceable to medical issues or genetic factors. Aberrant psychological development is common but is less easily detected through appearance or medical tests. Deviations in psychological adjustment, health, and functionality may represent themselves in diagnosable mental disorders or a confluence of departures from individual wellness or societal norms. Conditions such as immaturity, unhappiness, or gross lack of conformity may not be illnesses; yet they pervasively afflict sizable segments of different populations.
A concrete example of arrested physical development sometimes occurs with infants in a condition called failure to thrive. In these circumstances, the infant does not grow and gain weight in healthy, expected, and sustainable patterns. Such stunting or wasting may derive from medical or environmental conditions. It is dire, life-threatening, and addressable through physiological and caretaking interventions.
When people fail to develop adequate psychological skills and maturity to become independent, evolve an identity, and make their individual ways, or when they become stuck or stalled at certain stages of development, this is called arrested development.
Psychological development involves predictable and partly sequential stages, but it is slower, subtler, and less overtly tracked. When normal psychological growth becomes stunted or impacted—arrested development—emotional and psychological growth is hindered or altered during a necessary stage of maturation, leading to difficulties in emotional regulation, relationships, and overall functioning.
A person can become stuck in a particular stage, remaining inappropriately stalled and trying to cope without the requisite and age-appropriate skills and internal self-management to deal with themselves and external demands. Examples might include extreme childishness in behaviors, preferences, or preoccupations. Though all of us may revert or regress to earlier childhood comfort needs, someone in arrested development might spend inordinate amounts of time in fantasies like cartoons, childish toys, inappropriate oral gratification (thumb sucking, gorging and other eating disorders) or fussing or primping over appearance and image. Immature behaviors may signal stalled development, but the tipoff reveals itself in a dysregulation of emotional activity both internally and relation to others.
Individuals in arrested development fail to break free from the egocentrism and preoccupation with one’s own needs and desires that characterize children. In normal development, experiences, rules, learning, practice, and social expectations converge to allow for empathy, compassion, consideration, compromise, and the modification and inhibition of impulses. Those in arrested development behave as children in adult bodies. The contrast is often striking, interfering, and potentially offensive. The manifestations may range from quirky interests to narcissistic qualities.
One notable feature of arrested development shows in a difficulty to accept the limitations that age imposes on our bodies (which varies individually). Thus, “weekend warriors” may injure themselves trying to engage in athletic or physical maneuvers that were doable when younger, but risky in older bodies. Motivation and determination may morph into damaging comparisons and competitiveness for the sake of one’s pride and ego. Winning at all costs harkens back to fear of rejection or abandonment.
Mental, cognitive, or emotional impairment is not always due to failed development. However, when there is an underlying unresolved psychological developmental problem, the impairment and prognosis for outcomes is more severe. We see this in clinical settings when, for example, an adult has an accident that limits or curtails functioning, such as a physical injury, a stroke, or a disease onset. Or, as is expected as life advances, the loss of a loved one. Adjustment to a new set of circumstances is difficult enough; it is complicated and compromised when the history includes inadequate progression through the stages of psychological maturity and resilience that allows for healthier adjustment. The gradual acceptance of loss or limitations is impeded by unachieved developmental milestones. Staying stuck in the past is a hallmark of arrested development. Emotional immaturity and faulty development prevent psychological maturity and flexibility. Historical factors—including trauma at any point in life—relegate the emotional brain and its influences on attitudes and behaviors to replay damaging events and stall in their intransigent blockage to moving forward.
Numerous possible and potential origins of arrested development likely originate in childhood. There is no definitive causal determinant. Children raised by the same biological parents turn out differently. While there are likely influences of birth order, changing family and environmental circumstances, genetic variations and triggers even with the same parents, some children thrive and adjust better than their siblings. The ubiquity of these differences defies precise explanation. Such variations may attest to the prominence of free will and choice in life adjustment, stability, and success.
Nonetheless, certain adverse events in childhood raise the probability of emotional dysregulation and instability and may be tied to stalled psychological development.
It is known that neglect or absence of parents or caretakers (especially in a child’s infancy and toddlerhood) has extremely deleterious effects on emotional development and the child’s capacity to bond and form attachments. This has been documented in the histories of children in neglectful orphanages. Harsh conditions and lack of nurturing have profound negative effects on the brain’s ability to self-regulate, self-soothe, and grow with compassion, sympathy, and empathy.
Though scandalous orphanages or other harsh, depriving environments lead to scars of neglect or traumas of abandonment, even the child’s perception of neglect or dismissal can have similar effects. Realistically or not, a child may interpret parental treatment, emotional distance, or absence as an abandonment and rejection. The sense of being unloved or unimportant can persist indefinitely.
Parents vary in their temperaments, personalities, frustration tolerance, values, and styles. Though behavior patterns don’t necessarily repeat themselves in lockstep generationally, a truism is that parents tend to raise their children in remarkably similar ways to how they were brought up. While these patterns are modifiable by conscious choices and values geared toward avoiding the repetition of their own unpleasant experience, parents often find themselves surprisingly recapitulating their childhood experiences in their own actions. It is a familiar refrain when a parent reflects, “My goodness, I sound just like my mother!”
Standards and practices of discipline vary, but most children are very sensitive to criticism, actual or perceived. When criticism is constant and not carefully constructive or when the attitudes and communications from parent to child are not heavily weighted with praise and encouragement, the child’s motivation deteriorates. Persistent criticism incurs the mindset that “Nothing I do is/will be good enough so why should I try.”
The widespread conclusion among therapists, counselors, and behavior analysts is that it takes at least twenty to thirty positive comments to offset one negative comment. Thus, the vulnerability to criticism—even if not intended or realized—has predictable negative effects on emotional resilience.
Cohorts to criticism include high standards and stringent expectations for children’s behavior and achievement. These have roots in family history and culture. Children internalize their parents’ standards whether or not they are explicitly stated or demanded. It is admirable when parents of low education or opportunity want their children to far exceed their own achievements or station in life. This is the proverbial American dream. It is more common, however, that successful parents (regardless of their earlier life circumstances) expect their kids to attain comparable economic and social status. There’s an old Jewish saying—though it cuts across many ethnic and cultural backgrounds: “You can become anything you want—as long as it’s a doctor, lawyer, or teacher.”
Not all children are created equal, obviously. Parents try their best to avoid comparisons between their children, but approval and favoritism is easily apparent as children discern their parents’ attitudes and behaviors. Though elders may be vigilant about avoiding comparisons, children compare themselves and detect subtle and blatant parental approval and sanctions. In the real world that includes activities, requirements, and relationships outside the family, children compare themselves, react to adult and peer comments and preferences, and make judgments about their worth and where they are in the pecking order of success and popularity. Feedback from others and their own filtered interpretations form the foundation of identity and self-worth.
Those who deem themselves less worthy can become isolated with poor confidence and faulty progress toward independence. Conversely, those treated as “golden children” can develop inflated perceptions of self-worth leading paradoxically to narcissism self-absorption in what they see as entitlement and superiority. This type of arrested development prevents them from recognizing and serving the needs of others.
We all endure many traumas throughout life. It is the nature of experience to face adverse events that challenge the security and equilibrium of our identity and brain functioning. Some traumas—physical and/or psychological can have life altering effects. Accidents can maim or kill loved ones, diseases can change the course of a life, and natural catastrophes can eviscerate communities. Violence, betrayal, and cruelty run the gamut of human suffering.
It is important to remember that events and perceptions that, on the surface, seem innocuous, can be quite traumatic to the developing mind. Rejection, teasing, exclusion, poor performance, bullying, embarrassment, and other life happenings can mar and deface the sanctity of well-being. An actual event may seem minor yet can have captivating and far-reaching effects on the emotional brain.
Our minds are capable of many feats that help us survive. We remember the past and use experiences to understand, adapt, plan, and prepare. We interpret the present and assimilate perceptions, events, and feelings into our schema, our internal maps of the world. We anticipate the future and formulate our responses to expectations of what will unfold.
Unfortunately, our impressionable minds are also sensitive and susceptible to retaining and magnifying experiences that are harmful or threatening. Along with our mental and somatic (body) memories of pain and danger, our minds tend to imagine, exaggerate, magnify, and catastrophize what might happen. Consider the following saying from Mark Twain: “I’m an old man, and I’ve seen many horrible, terrible, awful things—only most of them never happened.”
We all recognize our inherent capacity to dream up and/or exaggerate fears or hypothetical expectations of misfortune or disaster. For some, it is an occasional pang of anxiety and speculation; for others, it becomes an obsessive way of life. The mixture of actual misfortune or trauma with imagined potential often confuses or tricks the mind. Unfortunately, many bad things do happen, and our bodies and minds store these events in emotional and physical memory. This continuation of the damaging memory and experience implants the foundation for a myriad of problems. It is the foundation of traumatic reactions.
Traumatic memory is the essential organizing principle for most psychological distress: anxiety, fear, depression, flashbacks, disordered thinking, sleep disruption, and many others. It is also the basis for carrying forward the adversities of development described above that may lead one into “stuckness” and arrested psychological development.
Genetic and developmental characteristics interact with environmental influences and life experiences in determining outcomes. A significant percentage of diverse populations grow up with neurological processing and self-management irregularities that can hamper healthy development as well as cause interfering symptoms. This underlying brain dysregulation predisposes them to suffer more adverse effects from other influencing factors such as those described above. The wavering internal control mechanisms make them more vulnerable to traumas, rejection, social problems, and identity formation. This is a neurological insufficiency that sets them up for poor maturation.
Just as the tissues and organs differentiate physiologically in prenatal development, individuals must psychologically differentiate as distinct whole persons as they form their own identity. From the earliest differentiations of self from mother, food from nonfood, strangers from familiar faces, we grow through routine stages of mastery and achievement of tasks and independence. Gradually, we test boundaries and learn “who we are” in the world and in relation to others. Abnormal progress in differentiation results in clinging, inappropriate attachment to family, or inability to take risks, learn from positive and negative experiences, and make one’s way toward functioning at age-appropriate levels.
When psychological development stalls or departs from necessary development, both internal self-management and social adaptation are compromised.
Brain dysregulation reflects in emotional dysregulation that may precipitate anxiety, depression, lability, impulsivity, inappropriate aggression, and latent anger. Arrested development results in failure to desatellize (break away psychologically from the identity or emotional orbit) from family or persons upon whom one is emotionally dependent. This impairs development of the sense of self as distinct from others and sufficient unto oneself. It is typically bound with excessive neediness for reassurance, approval, and measures of safety and dependence.
Maturity is stunted or delayed. The psychological developmental process of object relations is thwarted. Object relations is a dynamic that involves the mind’s capacity to recognize other people as having needs and personalities of their own that are apart from the self-absorbed needs that characterize children and immature people. Age-appropriate object relations describe the emotional development and consonant skills needed for healthy relationships and the adaptive skills needed for functional give-and-take between people. Inadequate object relations prevent someone from relating to others with consideration and empathy. The person with poor object relations lives in a world in which “it’s all about me.”
People trapped in such limited development tend also to carry misperceptions and misattributions about the intent and motivations of others. They frequently have distorted thinking and poor reality testing—this means that they interpret events and intentions in unconventional ways that are not consonant with conventional thinking and the actual derivations and purposes of people’s behaviors toward them. This leads them in the direction of taking personal offense from behaviors or overtures that are not intended to have that effect. Thus, they may become indignant, overreact to, and exaggerate where actions or comments do not warrant or justify such interpretations. Arrested development blocks the ability to see subtleties and process ambiguities in the displays and communications of others. Relations and needs are distorted by the need to resolve or conclude situations by foreclosing with limited or incomplete information. For the sake of quick and self-satisfying closure, situations and people are seen in simplistic and black-and-white terms, underincorporating the complexities tell a truer story. Others may be seen as either wholly good or entirely bad, rather than as a differentiated complex person. Arrested development precludes cognitive and emotional inspection and evaluation of the nuances inherent in people and in life.
When emotional regulation is in disrepair, people avoid, suppress, or divert unpleasant or intolerable feelings. They can deny the presence or effects of negative emotions; or they may project such feeling upon others—reacting, interpreting, and accusing others of the feelings they themselves have that are unacceptable. This is a subconscious process, typically unavailable to the person doing it. As you might expect, it is a source of interpersonal conflict, inflaming defenses and creating distance and resentment.
As we mature and gain more life experience, we need to learn efficiently to avoid needless repeated mistakes. This requires generalizing from previous experiences the carrying forward of conclusions about consequences from previous events. The mind and memory must say: “What is it about this present circumstance that is familiar from what I’ve encountered before? And how did what I did turn out? Should I do something differently this time?” However, previous experiences, programming, and ingrained habits can inappropriately carry forward and deter accurate conclusions. Faulty evaluation and errant judgments may sway reactions to current situations in ways that may have previously prevailed but are unnecessary or ineffective for the circumstances at hand. These controlling influences from the past are often prompted subconsciously by previous relationships and/or trauma.
Fortunately, there are pathways to facilitate the progress of psychological development even after it has stalled or lay dormant. Here are some steps to counteract arrested development:
As mentioned earlier, so many people grow up with neurological processing and self-management irregularities that can hamper healthy development as well as cause interfering symptoms. This underlying brain dysregulation predisposes them to suffer more adverse effects from other influencing factors such as those described above. The wavering internal control mechanisms make them more vulnerable to traumas, rejection, social problems, and identity formation. This is a neurological insufficiency that sets them up for poor maturation.
Fortunately, there is an effective remedy for this deficiency (that manifests in many types of symptoms and disorders). It is called EEG neurofeedback, a process of training the brain with computers to develop and reorganize neurological self-regulation. It a fundamental and effective way to promote and catalyze the flexibility, functionality, and stability of the brain, our control center for so many life functions.
EEG neurofeedback is an exercise for the brain—like going to the gym for training neurological functions. It’s drug-free, natural, and enduring. It works on its own to build better brain capacities. It also enhances other interventions and sets the stage for complementary inputs and activities to get better results. Consider the following analogy.
To appreciate the process of how brain training lays the foundation for skills advancement and productivity, I offer this example: in sports like hockey, one must be able to skate deftly and competently with agility and endurance. Similarly, in soccer, basketball, and football, running endurance and agility are prerequisites to playing the game. Without such adequate foundation, skills development, play execution, and teamwork will not be successful. The analogy is that brain training is basic “boot camp” to condition the brain so that reorganization, integration, and facilitation of skills and adaptive habits become more likely. Without skating or running with flexibility and endurance, playing the game adequately is unlikely. Without a flexible, resilient, and organized brain, executing life’s demands on being on top of things will similarly be unsuccessful.
Traumatic events and memories are origins for most psychological distress: anxiety, fear, depression, flashbacks, disordered thinking, sleep disruption, and many others. They are also the basis for carrying forward the adversities of development described above that may continue “stuckness” and arrested psychological development.
Though we can’t predict or prevent traumas from happening, we can recover from them through valid and transformational therapies that free the mind and nervous system from the persistent and debilitating effects of previous events so that they cease carrying forward as if still real, thus blocking healing and maturational progress.
In addition to its efficacy at promoting self-regulation, EEG neurofeedback has a great track record for healing trauma. It is not a stand-alone panacea, but it is remarkably helpful. Other “power” therapies, such as Thought Field Therapy and Voice Technology are dramatically and rapidly effective in healing traumas. Sometimes, these treatments are sufficient to independently resolve traumas. More often they are the linchpins that allow other interventions to work better collaboratively.
The nature of immaturity is that the skills and habits of relating to others are inadequate, stunted, or inappropriate. Immature people are selfish, lacking the requisite capacity to consider the needs and feelings of others. They may be very uncomfortable and feel exposed in the presence of others in social situations. They may not know how to engage in conversations, to express interest in others, to share their own experiences with relevance, and to set and accept boundaries interpersonally. The person in arrested development prefers younger companions and activities more suited to children or adolescents. Excessive indulgence in video games or entertainment fantasy is common.
To emerge from such childish preoccupation, training in social skills and age-appropriate behaviors is necessary. This can be done through targeted psychotherapy (including role playing and rehearsal) and also through participation structured group activities, including team sports, social skills groups, and opportunities for public speaking.
Anxiety reduction techniques are usually needed in concert with specific skills training.
Reality testing is a psychological term that refers to how congruent one’s ideas and perceptions are with accepted norms and the thinking of most people around them. Besides monitoring our thoughts and what we share with others, we should be cognizant of whether our perceptions and beliefs about what’s going on align with those of others to a considerable degree of convention. This doesn’t mean necessarily agreeing with others. Rather it has to do with the extent to which thinking distortion dissociates and alienates a person from the commonly shared and accepted ideas held by a given community.
People with poor reality testing are not on the same page as others. Extreme forms of this are reflected in schizophrenic or psychotic thinking. However, many maladjusted people have more subtle thinking distortions characterized by “private logic” that is unavailable to those around them. Thus, they perceive and distort events, motivations, and people’s feelings, intent, and behaviors in ways that depart significantly from what is verifiable.
Though reality testing problems may pervade all age groups, they are also a problem for the psychologically immature who retreat into imaginary worlds to be safe, avoid uncomfortable feelings, and construct and justify a world view that suits them.
Correcting reality distortions takes time and usually requires professional help. In severe cases, psychotropic medication may be helpful. Irrespective of psychopharmacology, learning to deal with the world and other people the way they are requires stepwise adjustment in the process of catching up with growing up.
Habits and behavior patterns tend to persist whether or not they are useful or counterproductive. We are all creatures of habit, and the behavioral dynamics of reinforcement solidify learning and automatic repetition of behaviors. This occurs with behaviors we like and those we don’t, both in ourselves and others. Often, habitual behaviors are automatic and save us the effort of relearning. This is useful. But negative or unwanted behaviors surface and can be difficult to relinquish. Habits that once served a purpose can linger in our repertoire long after they are unnecessary or inappropriate.
These old behaviors may resume from memory, conscious deliberation, or atavistic occurrence from the past. Here is a legend that illustrates carrying forward a habit from childhood persisted despite losing its relevance:
There is a story about a woman who was famous for her cooking. The author of cookbooks and a familiar figure on television food shows, she was beloved in the public eye, and her recipes were favorites. One day, she received an inquiry about her recipe for a roast, which called for “slicing off two inches at both ends of the roast before further preparation.” The question was: “Why cut off the ends of the meat?” Since she had prepared her delicious roast this way for so many years, she had forgotten why the recipe called for cutting away four inches of seemingly good meat; she just remembered that this was her mother’s recipe and the way she had learned from childhood. So, she called her mother and asked why it was necessary to cut away the ends of the meat.
The mother answered, “My beloved daughter, the big-shot celebrity, do you remember that small apartment we had when you were a child? The only way I could fit the roast into a pan in that tiny oven was to cut off the ends!”
Helping someone work through immaturity and previous developmental stages usually involves uncovering and re-evaluating behaviors that no longer serve a useful purpose in the current period of life. It’s not always easy to break old habits—and this may require professional assistance—but highlighting and evaluating them is a necessary first step.
For those whose development is stalled, it’s important to review patterns of immature social ways of relating, self-indulgent comfort patterns (may include an abundance of comfort foods, video game excesses, poor self-care, irresponsible household habits, etc.). Sloppy hygiene (or excessive and obsessive care habits such as not bathing or bathing for hours), overfocus on aspects of body or appearance, forays into length fantasies, or need for childish self-soothing behaviors (stuffed animals, thumb-sucking, etc.) can interfere with mature functioning.
Remember: it’s not about you. We all need this constant reminder. Human nature is selfish, sinful, inwardly focused, and preoccupied with needs and potential threats to survival. Somehow, we must move beyond the internal fight-or-flight wiring that so easily morphs into egocentrism and potentially into narcissism.
Maturation, compassion, and care for others evolves gradually. These attributes require physiological balance and harmony, adaptively learned experience, critical thinking, and eventually some willful choices toward benevolence to others. Me first is the unfortunate default network of the human condition. However, it can be restrained and retrained.
Our human commonalities notwithstanding, consider the abundant evidence (genetics and Satan’s influence colluding) that some people are born badder than others. Read and hear badder as proclivities and probabilities, not determinism. Long before gene editing arrived, people have been able to change the course of their habits and intentions.
The main culprits are appetites and entitlement. These are the devil’s tools to sway, fool, tempt, and entrap.
Character can be changed—hopefully improved. It takes vigilance and work. Those in the throes of arrested development—with its incipient assumptions of entitlement and deserved rewards—are more prone to the narcissistic end of the self-absorbed spectrum.
Humility is the antidote to such psychological poison.
It is insufficient to call out and highlight maladaptive and inappropriate behaviors. Unfortunately, it is natural and frequent in our world to notice and focus upon negative or disturbing behaviors. There are behaviorally scientific reasons why the negative stuff commands more attention and reinforcement—not to exclude our philosophical and spiritual proclivities to dwell upon the derogatory and dissatisfying.
To foster better behaviors, increased motivation, and effective encouragement, we need to “catch’ em doing good.” Yet this is difficult without structured planning and practice aimed at reinforcing and shaping more adaptive behaviors.
In the realm of freeing people from the shackles of psychological immaturity and developmental arrest, such individuals must be taught and guided toward and through the age-appropriate behaviors they are either lacking or seldom exhibiting.
A global way of understanding this is to consider substituting desired behaviors for undesirable ones, especially in the context of and at the times in which the faulty behaviors occur. For example, when a child is disrespectful or aggressively angry, implementing a payoff (reward) in place of a sanctioned response to an unacceptable act eventually replaces the bad habit (instead of reinforcing it).
Example: “Johnny, what you said was disrespectful and hurt my feelings. I hope you understand that, whether it’s what you intended or not. Now I could take away your (phone, privileges, etc.); but if you redo what you did wrong, I will accept a better behavior and not give you a negative consequence. Try this: ‘I’m sorry for my words and outburst. I realize they were offensive. Please accept my apology and my intent to refrain from such disrespect in the future’.”
In cases of adults withdrawing into faceless computer games, internet rants, etc., substitute behaviors could include outreach to friends, family, social contacts built around inquiries and genuine interest in how they are doing, invitations to reciprocal communications or planned joint activities, and expressions of positive thoughts and concerns. These newer behaviors will need to be taught, rehearsed, role-played, and evaluated.
No one finds a friend or partner appearing between their face and a digital screen. The real world is ambivalent, risky, and often threatening or overwhelming. Relationships, progress, and maturity require participation and practice. However, the psychologically stalled and immature are starved for true human rewards, malnourished in social skills and engagement, and most often stuck in powerlessness and lack of awareness as the world passes them by.
Growing up is difficult, painful, yet achievable. It’s what we’re supposed to do.
— Mark Steinberg, PhD
