Let's not set fire to our caterpillars...

In the study of psychology, there is a concept of change that comes in to discussion frequently. How can I become a different person? Though I have not been here long, I am curious whether this is a useful and helpful concept. My experience in life so far has shown me that while people may not change, they can develop. An acorn can’t be a corn kernel, but it can develop into an oak tree.
The difference between change and development is not purely semantic, but conceptual. The idea behind change is to mold something into that which it is not. The idea behind development is to allow a thing to unfold into all that it can be.
Alchemists are the people who have studied transformation most thoroughly throughout history. They, and the chemists who followed them, showed that we as human beings can effect certain changes in compounds. Chemical changes, meaning changes in basic molecular organization, which are reorganizations. However, no one has succeeded in changing lead into gold. This is because lead and gold are elements.
It’s not to say that there are not ways that the elements can be “changed” into other elements, but the forces at play here are cosmic forces. Stars are the transformers, which can actually rearrange the nuclei of elements, are no changes, just different levels of rearrangement. The more foundational the level of rearrangement that is required, the more cosmic the forces need to be.
You can chop wood with an ax (physical change with physical force), separate the molecules with fire into carbon dioxide and water vapor (chemical change with energetic force), even separate hydrogen and oxygen from water with electricity (again, chemical change with energetic force), but in order to turn that hydrogen into helium (foundational nuclear change) nuclear level forces are required, such as are present in the unfathomable gravity and temperature of our sun.
How can these ideas be applied to a living system such as a human being. Living systems, being self-organizing, differ from the dead wood in our previous example. A person would not want to be chopped with an ax, burned, electrocuted, or placed in the center of the sun (speaking metaphorically of course) and would be resistant to interventions along these orders on some level since they all threaten self-organization.
However, there is one way in which living systems can be said to change, and this is through growth and development. All living systems go through processes of development and growth, some of which are as dramatic as caterpillar to butterfly. However! The forces at play in this sort of transformation are not external. They are inherent responses to conditions (internal or external). Transformations in living systems can not be “caused” by external factors, but may include a response to these external circumstances. In any case, Innate forces and the unfolding of potentialities are more the “cause” of any “change” in a human being or other living system.
The only way this is not true is in the case of killing or damaging a living system, in which case an external force can cause “changes” on a living system in a direct, non-responsive kind of way. You can set fire to a caterpillar, but it will change into a butterfly only when it’s good and ready.