Compare And Contrast Erikson's Theories Of Personality Development

Psychodynamic theory, although it is outdated, is the foundation for what we know as counseling today. It was first created by Freud and later expanded by Erikson and Jung. The focus of this therapy is mainly bringing the feelings and desires of the unconscious into consciousness and the unconsciousness’ role in behavior. It also postulates that there are different stages of personality development across the life span. Freud’s focus was on psychosexual development while Erikson used psychosocial stages as well. It concentrates mostly on childhood experiences, arguing that examination of the past leads to character development. This examination of the past and the unconscious can be accomplished through a number of techniques including

Burton, western & Kowaslki (2015) describes Personality as the enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances. In other words it can be defined as differences in characteristics in a person, including their way of thinking, likes, dislikes, sociability, openness, feelings and behaviour, which make them the person they are and differentiates them from others. All these traits when brought together is known to be the personality of that particular person.

However Erikson’s psychosocial personality theory emphasizes more on emotional polarity or conflict that a child encounters (McLeod, 2017). Within Erikson’s theory there are eight stages, each stage developing on top of another in an orderly fashion. The first four stages of Erikson’s theory closely resembles Freud’s personality theory, while the last four is a subdivided version of Freud’s genital stage (Engler, 2013). Each stage involved a life crisis, if this life crisis was not fixed Freud believed that it caused an unhealthy personality and self-worth. In turn, causing one to have be less motivated to complete the further stages (McLeod,

Erikson’s theory of personality is based on his eight stages of development. In each of these eight stages of

Put simply, developmental theories of personality follow quite closely the same developmental timetable as cognitive development. The Oral stage of Freud occurs during the Sensor motor period of Piaget; the anal stage, Pre-conceptual stage; the phallic stage, Concrete Operational Stage; the Latency period of Freud also occurs during the Concrete Operational stage; the Genital stage, Formal Operations. Erickson’s stages ad other stage theories follow a similar path. The ages of these stages are also milestones in development, many

Freud introduced us to unconscious motivations and how they determine our behavior. The study of the unconscious mind became a base and paved the way for other therapists. Also, the psychosexual stages were introduced which explain the biological and instinctual drive of children. The structure of personality is the foundation of our impulses, behaviors, and our interactions in our mental life. These include the id, ego, and superego. The superego prevents actions the id wants to accomplish; which is important because we all have irrational impulses and the superego saves us from those. It is important to look at the weaknesses of psychoanalysis and Freud’s ideas. The psychosexual stages stop at the age of six when development happens throughout someone’s lifetime. These psychosexual stages are his main focus and there is not much of a focus on how important social factors are on our mental health and development. Psychoanalytical therapists can sometimes be seen as subjective. The therapist analyzes the dreams and that is subjective. There is no empirical research to support his psychodynamic model, although the theory does explain reasons for irregularities in development. A common criticism is he blamed for inadequate parenting on mothers while the father was not in the equation. The time

Personality can be defined as patterns of a person's thoughts, feelings and behaviors in various situations. In its most basic form personality is attitude, values and interests. Personality traits can also be known as behavioral differences. Understanding and appreciating the diverse personalities of others can help people to interact and know why one person might act or respond in a certain way. This appreciation of personality diversity gives respect to the quirks and differences of individuals therefore respecting these differences as strengths.

Freud's perspective though focuses on the inner person and believes that unconscious forces act to determine personality behavior. Freud explains that everyone's personality has three aspects to it which are; id, ego and superego. Freud aso had stages of psychosexual development, unlike Erikson’s psychosocial development. Freud’s psychosexual development consisted of five parts; oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. As for Erikson's psychosocial theory it is mainly based on social and environmental factors and expands into adulthood, but Freud's psychosexual theory is based on the importance of basic needs and biological forces and his theory end at an early period of life compared to Erikson's. A similarity Erikson and Freud share together is that they both are theorists that have separated development into stages and they do use the similar age

Freud was a renowned and respected theorist who is recognized for his development of personality theories, in fact, many other philosophers followed his beliefs to include Carl Jung. The “ Stages of Psychosexual Development are, like other stage theories, completed in a predetermined sequence and can result in either successful completion or a healthy personality or can result in failure, leading to an unhealthy personality” (Heffner, 2014). The stages of Freud’s theory of Psychosexual Development are the Oral Stage (Birth to 18 months), Anal stage (18 months to three years), Phallic Stage (ages three to six), Latency Stage (age six to puberty), and the Genital Stage (puberty on) (Heffner, 2014).

Erik Erikson is the most influential person in the field of psychology. He was born on June 15th, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany and died on May 12th, 1994 in Massachusetts, Boston. He is known for his theory of psychosocial development comprising eight stages from early infancy to adulthood. Each of these stages, the person experiences a psychosocial crisis that influences personality based on their positive or negative outcomes. However, every human being enters certain stages to reach the full potential of development. In addition to Erikson, he was influenced by Sigmund Freud, who was a psychoanalysis, developed the structural models of personality, and psychosexual stages. Erikson extends on Freudian thoughts

Just like Sigmund Freud, Erikson believed in the significance of early childhood. However, he believed that an individual’s personality development occurs over the individual’s entire course of life. In the early 1960s, Erik Erikson proposed a theory that provided a description of eight different stages of human development (Scheck, 2014). According to him, in each phase, individuals face new challenges and the outcome of the stage depends on how individuals handle the encountered challenges (Scheck, 2014). The stages are named based on the possible outcomes.

Freud was known as an id psychologist, whereas Erikson more of the ego psychologist. Psychologist Erikson had believed that a person’s ego is develop through resolved situations that turn successful and allows us to be social (McLeod). His theory on the development of the attachment theory is psychological because it focused on the primary stages of development from infancy to maturity and the ego. His theory was that there are seven psychological stages that are

Personality is a unique endowment that every person possesses. It differs from one person to another. The difference makes people have different jobs, attitudes, ambitions, dreams, goals, reactions and perceptions. Personality is defined as “a set of

Erik Erikson was an ego psychologist who created a theory with different stages of development. He believed that our personality develops in stages as we are growing up.

Personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that gives both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior (Feist & Feist, 2008).