Self-awareness and Personal Development Through Kolb's

Introduction

Since the period of ancient Greek Aphorism "know thyself" to western psychology, self-awareness is a topic that has been dramatically studied by psychologists and philosophers for centuries, especially in the context of psychology dissertation help. Self-awareness refers to the awareness of the self as well as what makes an individual's identity unique. To determine self-being, one has to examine their experience, thoughts, and abilities. This psychological study dates back to 1972, when Shelley Duval and Robert Wick Lund's, who were psychologists came up with the theory of self-awareness (Klein, 2012). Various models have been developed to determine self-awareness. An example is Kolb's reflective cycle and Gibbs Model of reflection. The Kolb’s reflective cycle aids me to look at my experience, then review, analyse and evaluate in four stages (Akella, 2010). In this essay I will be providing a reflection of my personal development and self-awareness. I will identify my life experiences and reflect back on them through using Kolb’s reflective cycle (1984) and how they impact me currently when connection with others especially on my therapeutic relationships. I will also be focusing on identifying challenges that may arise whilst offering the core conditions to my clients within clinical practice.

Experience

As a child, all I craved from my parents was love and attention, they were both so busy building their separate businesses, this left me to grow up on my own and fend for myself. I learned from a very early age that in order for me to receive positive regard I was never to cause a fuss and have not any demands. I was brought up as children to be seen and not heard. This made me to crave for love. Always, I felt fear after a thought of being left alone at home. Most of the time, I felt that I was being loved especially when I remained quiet and fitted into my parents’ lives when they wanted me to. This marches the personal construct theory. As per the method, person develop personal constructs of the working of the world. Then the person uses this construct to interpret their experience and observations (Horley, 2012). I only received Conditional Positive Regard and this is where I seeked my parents approval by adapting my behaviour to be accepted. A person must do without positive regard or undergo behaviour change to receive positive approval (Bernstein 2003). I feel I have pushed my childhood memories to the back of my mind and has only arisen through personal therapy to enable me to realise where this need I have to be wanted and loved has come from and how it has implicated my past and current relationships. My self-concept is now developed and established on how do people see me and think of me, worrying about receiving negative judgement from the other people. In most cases, experiences which challenges self-concept are denied or distorted to preserve it. (Thorne, 1996).

Moreover, I am upset with who I am and if I happen I come across a client with similar lack of self-worth within them and the strong neediness I would feel deeply sad and even though I would be able to offer the core conditions, I would need to ensure I am always with the customers’ frame of reference and not to slip into my frame of reference thinking about my circumstances. Carl Rogers suggest that, being empathic, refers to perceiving the internal reference frame of another individual with accuracy as well as the emotional elements and meanings which are according to “if one were the person." (Carl Rogers, 1980) I would hope my frustration would not come across to the client as I know I have so much anger in myself that I have no worth and want to change so much and have an urgency to improve self-confidence and know my worth and I would fear it would come across to the client. Through a lot of reading, self-help, personal development and personal therapy I am really wanting to work through this and have that belief and trust in myself without the need to rely on trust of others.

Since my ex-husband disclosed to me he was gay after being together for fifteen years and having our son, I have struggled to deal with the situation and move on. My life was spend in a daze and worries. I still cannot understand how we had been together for such many years, living a lie, when he knew he was gay. I feel my marriage was a sham and that I was just a big cover for his sexuality. I am angry at how quickly he has moved on with his life and how I am still stuck here along with questions still to be answered. Every security that I had has been taken and I am confused how to ever get it back. He took my past away, everything had ever trusted and known in his life has been a lie. I feel isolated, stigmatized and shame, I am also trying to reason how people think there is something wrong with me.

When my husband came out gay and changed his identity he changed my sons and mine too. The whole thing is not anything that my son would be interested to talk to his colleagues. However, I am sure that my ex-husband loves our son, though does not have time to deal with daily impact on his life. My husband lives among the gay society and has colleagues to talk him through this, though me and my son are just like an underground secret society. This is where my anger come in with the gay community and how they just live their lives, I understand its hard coming to terms with being gay but everyone forgets us left behind. I am filled with guilt that I am unable to offer the core conditions to a client and in time through acceptance, supervision and personal therapy I can move on and be able to work with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender (LGBT) community but currently my experience id just too raw.

This will be one major challenge I have which has currently not come to me as yet is dealing with a client from the LGBT community. Even though I have no direct issues with them, I just know it would cause me to struggle offering the core conditions to the client after what has happened to me. I am in the process of personal therapy and trying to push myself to get over the situation as I do not want to feel like this and have this shame I have hanging over me thinking like this.

Throughout my marriage I was and still being emotionally and financially abused. My soon to be ex-husband has full control of my finances and when I do receive my weekly allowance I am to account for every penny, I currently feel very trapped, helpless and also worried about my future of learning to fully be able to manage on my own. I feel I have to play up to my husband just in case he stops my income from our business. My husband has really made me feel inadequate in all my aspects of life right from the beginning. I have been isolated from all my family and friends so the only person I have had has been him. I’m currently vulnerable and yearn for reassurance and my self-esteem is very low. This is where I know I am living as two very different people. Self-concept is split into parts. "The individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is" Baumeister (1999) The first part my organismic self who very little see, possibly only my tutor and peers during personal development and residential and also my personal therapist have only just seen a snap shot of this.

Analysis

At the start of the experience, all I craved from my parents was love and attention, though they were both so busy building their separate businesses. I never wished to be away from my parents while to them; business was more important. According to the attachment theory, which examines the parent-child relationship and its influences in the development of a child, a child requires to develop a relationship with a parent while growing (Fonagy, 2018). Moreover, Goldberg et al. (2013) suggest that, when children are separated from their parents, they become agitated and are usually happy when a parent comes back. The children seek to require comfort from the parent (security). Parents who are always away from their children are still creating an insecure attachment to children. Besides, the study also indicates that children who are securely attached are more empathetic during later stages of life. Therefore, from this theory, I believe that my actions and feeling were in line with other children's tastes, especially when neglected by parents.

Additionally, from my experience with my husband, I have been too emotional for long especially after remembering how our marriage was and how it came to pass (Amato, 2010). The study have also revealed that, it is normal to experience some feelings. This means that an individual can be angry, sad, frustrated, and even confused. However, the feelings can be intense. Moreover the study also suggest that, it is normal to be anxious about the future. Therefore, it is important to accept that reactions and learn a lesson. Research has also suggested that, an individuals also may develop trust issues which makes it very hard to develop a new relationship (Hetherington et al., 2014). Moreover, similarly to my experience, study reveal that, self-confidence reduce and some people may develop self-hatred.

Quote about organismic self

The ideal self is who I want people to think this is who I am, happy, confident, outgoing and coping. This is how I expect friends and family want me to behave. This I find exhausting and physically draining.

Conclusion

Dealing with stress in some part of life is very challenging. However, some challenges act as a lesson to learn how to help people with similar challenges.

My feelings in summary and future Action plan

My organismic self and ideal self or in a state of incongruence which has given me a distorted self-image.

I have very little self-worth and I’m extremely unhappy at times and I’m now always guarded within my relationships.

Rogers believed as a child grows older, interactions with significant others will affect feelings of self-worth. Rogers (1961).

I feel I have to do something to receive love and reassurance that I need from significant people in my life, I have no trust in myself.

If a similar situation was to come up with a client in the counselling room, it would probably trigger something for me and possibly make me think about myself during their session. This is something that I am fully aware needs work and I am working with my therapist to deal with it.

In the future, I will maintain and as well develop a positive mentality while dealing with challenges. For instance, working with people who have similar kind of stress would be my interest to help the seal with their various challenges.

Secondly, I will be sensitive to people with stress and clients who appear disturbed to help them solve some of their issues.

From experience, I have also learned to maintain positive attitudes with work colleagues to help them feel appreciated to avoid distress and depression due to neglecting

References

• Akella, D., 2010. Learning together: Kolb's experiential theory and its application. Journal of Management & Organization, 16(1), pp.100-112.
• Amato, P.R., 2010. Research on divorce: Continuing trends and new developments. Journal of marriage and family, 72(3), pp.650-666.
• Fonagy, P., 2018. Attachment theory and psychoanalysis. Routledge.
• Goldberg, S., Muir, R. and Kerr, J. eds., 2013. Attachment theory: Social, developmental, and clinical perspectives. Routledge.
• Hetherington, E.M. and Blechman, E.A. eds., 2014. Stress, coping, and resiliency in children and families. Psychology Press.
• Klein, S.B., 2012. The self and its brain. Social Cognition, 30(4), pp.474-518.
• Nelson, L., Cushion, C.J., Potrac, P. and Groom, R., 2014. Carl Rogers, learning and educational practice: Critical considerations and applications in sports coaching. Sport, Education and Society, 19(5), pp.513-531.

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