WHAT IS MATURITY?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 815, 11 March 1955, Page 16

WHAT IS MATURITY?

i tlie" ete An abridqment of the second of two

talks aiven by DR.

GEOFFREY

BLAKE-PALMER

Medical Superin-

tendent, Seacliff Hospital, and Lecturer in Mental Diseases at the University of Otago

N my earlier talk attention was drawn to the fact that many of us carry over into adult life emotional responses and patterns of reaction which were more appropriate to the nursery. Beneath a facade of physical maturity there too

often lurks an emotional pattern fixed at a childhood level. Such patterns, like character, have a more or les® stable and enduring quality. It is very important that their nature is understood by the individual and recognised for what it is by those with whom they come in contact. Despite the assertions of the moralist and the assumptions of the legislator, emotion and sentiment are too often the deciding factors in very important issues in an individual life. Even where the dangers are recognised and an attempt is made by organisations, which themselves may not be too well qualified, to give some measure of instruction, the real issue may be determined on the | basis of emotion and wishful thinking. It is not difficult to seek scapegoats. It is more difficult to replace them, for | they save personal effort and concern Take, for example, marriage and the whole complex question of the present day attitude to sex morality. There seems to be a deep-seated belief that by _means of lectures, pamphlets and various forms of instruction alone, these matters can be arranged more satisfactorily. There is at present little informed or _ controlled inquiry and less real planning | given to preparation for marriage than for the selection of a recruit for compulsory military training. Even where health of the partners is reviewed, little attention is paid to compatibility, temperament or purpose. All too often a vague happiness is the primary aim without any very clear idea as to why this should be more easily come by with added responsibilities than it was before. I fear that so muddled is the thinking in these matters that some believe marriage may be a good treatment for neurosis, or an exchange of marriage partners a substitute for self-mastery and understanding. All this points to a great deal of wishful thinking and a great. aversion to facing the realities in a situation. The partner is often first invested with ideal qualities, which may well be a shadow of the infantile hero or heroine, and then blamed or reviled for not coming up to expectation. The roots of these troubles spread very early in life and there can be little doubt that negative influences in home and school, ignorance, and an immature psychological pattern (often arising from negative parental attitudes to the natural bodily functions) do much to hinder the attainment of a healthy maturity of outlook. At the first check old fears are reawakened. Old memories of parental unhappiness, if such existed, are revived. Echoes of parental warnings intrude with increasing insistence. The child, ?

sensing it has stumbled on forbidden topics, puzzles, worries or fantasies in secret and perhaps with an awakening sense of unhealthy shame, rather than reverence for the mysteries of life. Persistence of childhood influences and ways into adult life may prove an effective bar to the attainment of maturity. Difficulties also arise when children are taught the certainties of a group in such a way as to believe that absolute truth has been reached; fixed, final and beyond review. Conflicting desires may be repressed or further inquiry stifled. Pehaps some harm may also arise from too early training of the child to conform with the adult patterns of the community. The child is not infrequently: faced with stern disapproval at inevitable lapses and may despair of attaining the standard set. An opposing danger-or perhaps one should say a complementary dangerarises from that excessive concern on the part of apprehensive parents to protect the child from ail the consequences of its own actions even where the danger is insignificant. Every child must be protected from real danger and must be taught to recognise it for what it is. But it should learn that the cat scratches by »Practical experience. It is, I believe, unwise to allow childten to think that what hurts them is bad instead of their learning why \they get hurt. It is much worse to teach them that if they are good they won’t get hurt; or that things that get in the way are bad: that leads the child to expect that all things that are hurtful or hateful should be removed from his path. The germs of acceptance of reality cannot be instilled too early. It is hard enough for most people to come to terms with it in any event. Childhood habits which make for ease in side-stepping uncomfortable facts prove an almost insuperable bar to the fuller attainment of maturity in adult life. So far maturity. has been considered in relation to the child and to education. I have’ been asked to make reference to maturity in relation. to religious experience and political thought. Let us first consider political thought as defined of old. "The study of the activity of government, of the management of the public or common affairs." I fear that today there may also be some awareness of the first and second principles to which Aristotle -attached such importance. "First that they shall live" (that is to say supply and defence) and second "that they shall live well." It will be realised that concern. with differences

rather than with common grounds and concern with living well rather than with the assurance that the community can continue to live, takes a rather too prominent part in many people’s approach to political thought today. The immediate concern is with the actual event and too little attention is paid to the underlying causes. In 1943, when I was serving with the British Military Mission to the. Royal Greek Army, I had occasion to visit a Greek Brigade camp at a time when there had been a political coup in the Government-in-exile, There had been repercussions in the Army command, The Brigade was temporarily under the command of a British officer who had served in Malta during the siege. On reporting to him certain difficulties that had arisen in the medical units, I was told by way of sole advice that "It’s all in Thucydides." I was not given chapter and verse and had to solve the problem as best I could. Yet the Brigadier was perfectly right. The particular situation was a repetition of events in 20th Century terms almost exactly paralleling others of the 5th Century B.C. By way of illustration I will quote from Thucy- dides’ analysis of the war mood of Greece: "The war mood brought with it many and terrible symptoms such as have occurred and will always occur so long as human nature remains what it is; though in a severer or milder form according to the variety of the particular cases," You will note that Thucydides focuses attention on the sources of our discontent and traces it to its origins in individual imperfections in our nature. He does not lament or bemoan the troubles of his age but seeks to analyse them and to face the implications. His aversion to war does not express itself in simple wishful thinking resolutions about its avoidance, or condemnation of the means by which it is prosecuted. He seeks to expose its very roots and is just as critical as an illustrious predecessor of those who blame outside forces: "Strange how mortals blame the Gods, they say the evil is our handiwork when in truth they bring their sufferings on themselves; by their own folly they force the hand of fate." By what has already been said there will be some obvious indications for a measure to maturity-and a recognition of immaturity-in religious thought and experience. An over-childlike expectation that all will be well, without any effort on the part of the supplicator provided certain rules are outwardly complied with, more or less, betrays a lack of those qualities that seem inseparable from our concept of maturity. Furthermore there is a danger that such simple wishful aspirations may lead to expectations of the granted wish as if by right -with consequent bitterness or disappointment. In the realm of mystical experience many warnings have been given, earliest perhaps by the Eastern churches, of the dangers which may arise from such visions as may be present in the early

stages of mystical experience. These | dangers were soon recognised by the Western Church and very great care is taken before such experiences are accepted. In this field the temptation to perceive what is so devoutly hoped for may prove a source of error and deception of which a more mature mind could more rapidly accept the possibility. The part played by guilt feelings and fear in arrested spiritual development or as an impediment to action has been recognised for many thousands of years. It may be thought therefore that the extent to which exaggeration of guilt feelings or accentuation of fear may be minimised in upbringing is well worthy of attention. Preoccupation with such concerns effectively limits development of a mature personality. It is also reflected in public actions and utterances and may prevent a fuller inquiry into important matters in hand. Before leaving this topic I would again remind you that instruction with too much emphasis on fear and guilt, reward and punishment is more readily acceptable to persons of less mature state of development than one which demands a measure of personal effort and performance. Children of whatever age tend to seek the easier pathways, It remains in the few minutes at my disposal to refer briefly once again to those hallmarks of maturity, those outward and visible indications that the person or organisation has attained "complete and natural development; with fully developed powers of body and mind." There must be understanding of self and recognition that some _ childhood patterns still lurk. These must not be allowed too big a part to play if they hinder re-appraisal of a situation in terms of its external realities. There must be a willingness to accept responsibility for self and health both of body and mind. There must be recognition that to seek experience for its own sake, without accepting responsibility for the consequences, does not confer maturity and is at best but a ritual by which the status of maturity is reputedly conceded. There must be an eagerness to maintain personal status as an individual whilst conceding it to others and at the same time contributing one’s quota to the community. This implies a willingness to contribute for the well being and happiness of others. and to concede good motives to others in the absence of clear proof of contrary intention. There must be a conscious effort to maintain some pattern of harmony between inner beliefs and outer practices, free of that tendency to except for one’s self what one demands of others. This does not demand that one’s own principles of conduct should be forgone as the price of an uneasy co-operation.