Lamar Odom's Social Behavior Analysis

Widely known for playing six seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers Lamar Odom’s social role as a pro basketball player and according to Parade magazine as “Player of the year” (BiographyEditors.com, 2015) quickly changed to Kardiashian reality star, and husband of Khole Kardiashian. Lamar Odom’s journey to success as a pro-basketball was anything but unproblematic. As we view the biopsychosocial development and its different stages, we see the various aspects how certain events have impacted his social functioning, which later contributed to his “downfall”. Growing up as a young child in the harsh streets of South Jamaica, Queens, Lamar was exposed to a social environment which consisted of drugs, gangs and violence. His father was “disabled war veteran and a heroin addict; his mother, Cathy Mercer was a correction and traffic officer (BiographyEditors.com, 2015).” According to the Erikson’s psychosocial theory, which consists of 8 stages of development, infancy (trust vs. mistrust) is the most important stage. During this stage the infant learns to trust its caregivers and the environment around him. Forced to adapt in an environment in the absence of his father, Lamar was raised in a

Lamar’s heart seemed to longer be in the game, once the trading to another team occurred. “According to the New York Times Article, “when the Lakers traded Odom to the Dallas Mavericks in December 2011, many of those who knew him best feared for his mental health (Caramanica, Cieply, & Barnes, 2015, p.6).” Soon after that a number of tragedies surrounded the NBA star throughout his career as an NBA star, from him losing his grandmother in 2003, to the sudden death of his 6 month old son. It could be said that such tragedies, like losing his best friend to a drug overdose and being traded to another team, are contributing factors to his mental