Action to Promote Personality Development: Some Basic Concepts

I f one wishes to improve himself, as we i n Amer ica so often do, but \ncannot point to any illness that needs to be cured, he is very l ike ly to \nconceive of his goal i n developmental terms: to be more "mature," to g r o w \ni n this or that respect, to develop this or that qual i ty of character or of \nperformance. A n d i f we ask ourselves what can or should be done i n the \ninterests of individuals for w h o m we have some responsibility, professional \nor other-say we are educators or counselors or consultants-we inevitably \nf ind ourselves t h i n k i n g i n developmental terms of the same k i n d .