Leading education in mental health and wellbeing
Brisbane | Adelaide | Perth | Melbourne | Mullumbimby | Sydney
Level 3, 127 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5000
RTO 40263 TEQSA PRV14055 CRICOS NO. 03581E ABN 95 112 989 581
T 1300 000 933 E info@ikoninstitute.com.au
ikoninstitute.edu.au
Institute of Australia
Higher Education | International Education | VET
Written Journal Guide
This document constitutes the structure of your journal. Please take your time to think and reflect on each
stage. Each question should be given about one hour of work. You should research and read for each
question as much as possible and spend time thinking about these questions rather than rush to answer
them.
Week 1: Introduction
Written:
1) What do you know about human development?
2) Where are you in your development?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time on reflection now produce a symbolic representation of human development.
Week 2: Evolution
Written:
1) Why start a subject on human development with evolution?
2) What is evolving in evolution?
3) Evolution contends that life has a function, but not a meaning, reflect on this.
4) Reflect on how wasteful evolution is, and that from that process you are here.
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on Evolution now try and develop a symbolic presentation of evolution
and what is evolving.
Week 3: Cultural Evolution
Written:
1) What is a meme?
2) How are you apart of cultural evolution?
3) How are minds connected to tools, instruments, culture and ideas?
4) What was the nature of the Axial revolution?
5) In what ways is Human development a cultural process?
6) “You can’t do much building with your bare hands, you can’t do much thinking with your bare brain,
reflect?”
7) what cultural information has affected you?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on cultural evolution, now develop a symbolic representation of the
cultural evolution process.
Week 4: Biological foundations
Written:
Reflect on the complexity and context of your conception and gestation,
1) What strikes you about the complexity of your early development?
2) What strikes you about the context of your early development?
Leading education in mental health and wellbeing
Brisbane | Adelaide | Perth | Melbourne | Mullumbimby | Sydney
Level 3, 127 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5000
RTO 40263 TEQSA PRV14055 CRICOS NO. 03581E ABN 95 112 989 581
T 1300 000 933 E info@ikoninstitute.com.au
ikoninstitute.edu.au
Institute of Australia
Higher Education | International Education | VET
3) How do you feel reading about the fragility of your early development?
4) What have you inherited from your Mother and Father?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on conception and gestation now develop a symbolic representation of
your coneeption and gestation process.
Week 5: Temperament
Written:
1) What is temperament?
2) What is the nature of your temperament?
3) How does your temperament influence your intimate relationships
4) How agreeable are you? How does this effect your life?
5) How sensitive or insensitive are you? How does this effect your life?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on the nature of your temperament now develop a symbolic
representation of your temperament.
Week 6: Attachment
Written:
1) What is attachment?
2) What is Secure attachment? What is Avoidant attachment?,
What is Ambivalent attachment? What is Disorganized attachment?
3) What is your basic attachment history and style?
4) How has your attachment style effected your adult relating?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on attachment now develop a symbolic representation of your attachment
configurations.
Week 7: Cognition and Affect
Written:
What is cognition
2) What is affect?
3) How do you understand your particular state of
affective cognitive organisation (pay particular attention to flatness and liableness)? 4) How has this state of
organisation affected you through the course of your life?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on the state of your particular state of cognitive and affective organisation
now develop a symbolic representation of this organisation.
Leading education in mental health and wellbeing
Brisbane | Adelaide | Perth | Melbourne | Mullumbimby | Sydney
Level 3, 127 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5000
RTO 40263 TEQSA PRV14055 CRICOS NO. 03581E ABN 95 112 989 581
T 1300 000 933 E info@ikoninstitute.com.au
ikoninstitute.edu.au
Institute of Australia
Higher Education | International Education | VET
Week 8 Symbol and Language
(For homework please watch the movie Arrival (2016) – IMDb)
Written:
1) What is the role of symbolic formation in human development?
2) How is language important for human life and development?
3) What is the intersection of human language, culture and human development?
4) How does your language use effect your life?
5) What occurs to you about your history of language use and acquisition? (did you have or do you have
trouble reading, speaking, if so what does this mean)
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on symbolism and language now develop a symbolic representation of
these and their relationship.
Week 9: Classical developmental Models
Written:
1)What is your style of relating according to Horney?
2) Review your life development through the lens of Erikson:
Stage One – Trust vs Mistrust
Stage Two – Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt
Stage Three – Initiative vs Guilt
Stage Four – Industry vs Inferiority
Stage Five – Identity vs Role Confusion
Stage Six – Intimacy vs Isolation
Stage Eight – Ego Integrity vs Despair
3) Review your life development through the lens of Piaget
Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations.
Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening.
Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence).
They are separate beings from the people and objects around them.
They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them
Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7
Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.
Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.
While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in very
concrete terms.
Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.
They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is
equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example.
Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete.
Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle.
Leading education in mental health and wellbeing
Brisbane | Adelaide | Perth | Melbourne | Mullumbimby | Sydney
Level 3, 127 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5000
RTO 40263 TEQSA PRV14055 CRICOS NO. 03581E ABN 95 112 989 581
T 1300 000 933 E info@ikoninstitute.com.au
ikoninstitute.edu.au
Institute of Australia
Higher Education | International Education | VET
Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up
At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical
problems.
Abstract thought emerges.
Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require
theoretical and abstract reasoning.
Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information.
4) What insights do you have about your own development when viewed through these traditional models?
Week 10: Post Biographical Development
Written:
1) There is a sense in which it is possible to move past a biographical orientation to life, a place where your
personal histories are but narratives viewed through a useful construct termed the self, reflect?
2) What is course mind?
3) What is subtle mind?
4) What is extra subtle mind?
5) How do these states feature or not feature in your life?
6) What practices might you include in your daily life to assist your development as a person?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on this outer edge and rare aspect of human development create a
symbolic representation of your mind.
Week 11: Future of Human Development
Written:
1) What do you imagine the future development of Life to be?
2) What do you imagine the future development of our species to be?
3) What do you imagine the future development of your culture to be?
4) What do you imagine your future development to entail?
5) Reflecting upon all you have done how do you now understand
development?
Symbolic representation:
After having spent time reflecting on the possible future of development as a general category and human
development generate a symbolic representation of the organising quality of development.
Leading education in mental health and wellbeing
Brisbane | Adelaide | Perth | Melbourne | Mullumbimby | Sydney
Level 3, 127 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5000
RTO 40263 TEQSA PRV14055 CRICOS NO. 03581E ABN 95 112 989 581
T 1300 000 933 E info@ikoninstitute.com.au
ikoninstitute.edu.au
Institute of Australia
Higher Education | International Education | VET
Further work:
Take all of the symbolic representations you have developed over the last eleven weeks, place them so
you can see them all. Allow your felt sense of these to inhabit your body, draws these together into your
body and allow yourself to coalesce the totality of the felt sense of these representations into a singular
representation of development.
Written work:
Take time to reflect on this process, what insight and understanding have you gained about
human development?
Essay Question?
Use your written and symbolic work to help answer the question “What is developing?” Answer in regards
to the universal category (Being), the particular category (Culture) and the individual category (you).
