Ilm Nafs al-Numu min al-Janin ila al-ShaykhuKha
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- Maktabat Al-Anglo Al-Misriyyah
Ilm Nafs al-Numu min al-Janin ila al-Shaykhukha (Developmental Psychology from Fetus to Old Age) is an academic treatise on lifespan developmental psychology by the Egyptian psychologist Adil al-Ashwal (Adil Izz al-Din al-Ashwal), completed in Cairo in 1996.
Background and Purpose
The book was authored while al-Ashwal served as the head of the Mental Health Department and director of the Psychological Counseling Center at the Faculty of Education, Ain Shams University, with its preface dated January 1996 in Cairo. The author intended the work as a foundational reference surveying contemporary theories of developmental psychology and pedagogy, outlining developmental milestones and behavioral challenges across the human lifespan, addressing counseling methods, and investigating the psychology of senescence and the concept of death.
Structure and Contents
The work is organized into four main parts (abwab) followed by a concluding section on the end of life:
- Part One: Introduction to the Study of Developmental Psychology (Madkhal li-Dirasat Ilm Nafs al-Numu): Details the history and scientific definition of developmental psychology, tracing its pre-scientific and modern periods. It explores the determinants of human behavior, including maturation, readiness, critical developmental periods, developmental tasks across life stages from infancy to old age, core principles of growth, learning theories, motivation models, and the heredity-environment debate. It also examines research methodologies and assessment tools, covering observational, experimental, differential, projective, cross-sectional, and longitudinal approaches.
- Part Two: Childhood (al-Tufula): Addresses prenatal development, covering genetics, embryonic and fetal stages, maternal-fetal interactions, pregnancy complications, labor, and neonatal care. It covers infancy and toddlerhood, focusing on motor, sensory, linguistic, and cognitive processes, alongside attachment, stranger anxiety, and separation anxiety. It examines early childhood (ages 2–5) and middle childhood (ages 6–12), analyzing intelligence testing, language acquisition, social socialization, moral reasoning, self-concept, peer relations, and schooling. It reviews lifespan developmental theories—including those of Bühler, Jung, Freud, Erikson, Peck, and Riegel—and examines childhood behavioral problems such as feeding issues, sleep disturbances, enuresis, aggression, lying, and stealing.
- Part Three: Adolescence (al-Murahaqa): Analyzes patterns of adolescent development (adaptive, withdrawn, aggressive, and delinquent), physiological changes during puberty, formal operational thinking, identity crisis, moral and political development, and alienation. It also addresses parenting styles, peer group dynamics, adolescent psychological disorders—such as anxiety, depression, hypochondria, and eating disorders—and counseling approaches.
- Part Four: Adulthood (Marhalat al-Rushd): Covers early adulthood, focusing on physical and cognitive stabilization, intimacy, career choice, marital adjustment, parenting, and divorce. It explores middle adulthood, discussing physiological changes, fluid and crystallized intelligence, and creativity. It addresses old age and deconstructs ten common misconceptions regarding aging, such as assumptions of universal senility, total loss of sexual function, cognitive inflexibility, unproductivity, and inevitable isolation.
- Conclusion: Investigates death as the terminal point of the human life cycle, presenting Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and the development of the psychological conception of death across age stages.
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