Maturity growth

Unlike primary growth, which proceeds through infancy, childhood and adolescence and may be said to cease on reaching adulthood, maturity growth does not recognize time limits. It may potentially continue throughout life, declining perhaps in senility or ceasing only in death. This type of growth is slower and less spectacular than primary growth. It is not determined in intensity or duration by the person's genetic code, nor expressed through the individuals physical size or acquisition of sensorimotor or intellectual capabilities. It develops or is restricted by interaction with a given environment and is a certain type or expression of psychological growth. It is expressed through strengthening and enriching the personality, involving a process of constructing and consolidating the self, of developing certain capacities and powers. Provided there is a favourable socio-cultural context, these are encountered in a state of active tension or latency in the individual once he has begun to pass through the final stages of primary growth.

The following facets are those through which maturity growth is revealed: profound emotivity; capacity for communication; rationality, imaginative capacity and intuition; constructing the self and consolidating personal identity; sensitivity and experiential openness; creative and expressive capacity; psychosomatic integration; adult realism; capacity for constructive work; impulse toward active social transcendency.