Abstract

LAMELA, Diogo Jorge Pereira do Vale. Development after divorce as a strategy of human growth. Rev. bras. crescimento desenvolv. hum. [online]. 2009, vol.19, n.1, pp. 114-121. ISSN 0104-1282.

Divorce is one of the most stressful moments in adults' lives. After the marital dissolution, ex-partners have to face many changes and challenges. The psychological literature has given priority to the study of the negative consequences of divorce in the developmental pathways of all members of the family, through exhaustive research of adjustment problems that would prove that divorce is itself a factor of emotional destabilization and risk for psychological disorder. However, currently, there are lines of research that are distant from this view, focusing on the possibilities of positive development that can germinate with a divorce. Thus, divorce adjustment is not seen as a process of cumulative losses but, rather, as a potential qualitative process characterized by new life goals, skills improvement, and bigger intimate and emotional maturity. This article proposes a conceptualization of divorce adjustment as being measured by the qualitative result of a sequence of integrated developmental changes, where more advanced levels of development, which somehow are also more differentiated, must integrate and overcome the previous and instrumental levels in divorce adjustment. Finally, the theoretical difficulties existing in the literature to define positive development are introduced, as well the methodological procedures used to understand these pathways of human growth.

Keywords : adult; divorce; development; developmental pathways.

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