Sentence:  I am not aware of great attention by any of these authors or by the psychotherapeutic profession to the role of literary study in the <WSD>development</WSD> of conscience - most of their attention is to a pre-literate period of life , or , for the theologians of course , to the influence of religion . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage)