This essay will demonstrate my understanding of developments which occur at each stage of an individual's life cycle. I will relate these developments to two relevant psychological theories and discuss how an individual's needs must be met to enable them to develop.
The human life cycle can be broken down into 5 basic stages (Bingham et al. 2009);
Infancy - 0-2 years
Childhood - 2-12 years
Adolescence - 12-21 years
Adulthood - 21-65 years
Older Adulthood - 65+ years
During each stage of the life cycle, different physical, emotional, cognitive, social and cultural developments occur; In infancy, physical changes include learning to sit up, crawl and walk independently. At this stage, the infant will begin to look for attention from others …show more content…

As before, Mrs. Oswald has not made friends with other residents of Thorneycroft, though she has made a few friends at the daycentre. She likes to talk and could be encouraged to mix more which would help with her feelings of loneliness, she never had friends or visitors at home before she came to Thorneycroft as her family all live far away and only visit to attend review meetings every six months. She has not formed close relationships with staff at Thorneycroft, instead, as mentioned before she treats them as her employees.
Mrs. Oswald is an articulate and well spoken individual who has come from a middle class background. She appears to be well educated and has had a successful career as a midwife spanning fifty years. She had her daughters when she was young and out of wedlock, as a result they were brought up by her mother and Mrs. Oswald left at sixteen to begin her training as a midwife. Her career was important to her and she concentrated on this, not having any more children and marrying late in life. Her middle class upbringing has followed her through life, and she still takes pride in her appearance and has a strong sense of what she believes to be "proper". Her husband and her enjoyed going on cruises and she is well- travelled. She does not attend church services or appear to be religious at all.
In order for them to progress successfully through each stage in the life cycle, an individual's needs at each stage must be met. For example,