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Erikson Stages Of Adolescence

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Identity often refers to a sort of desperate quest or a deliberately confused search through both a mental and moral experience. However, Erikson approaches this idea as an experience that will almost be a surprise that sneaks up on one, rather than something that can be found. The process of identity formation is located in the core of an individual, and also in the core of ones communal culture. This process is ever changing and developing, but reaches a crisis during the stage of adolescence. At the earliest stage of the identity crisis there is an important need for trust in oneself and others. Adolescents, at this stage, look passionately for ideas to place faith in, and additionally, ideas, which seem worthwhile to prove …show more content…

252).
Adolescents can be remarkably intolerant to peers or concepts which one may view as “different”. Erikson explains that such an intolerance to something abnormal or different may be a necessary defense against a sense of self-identity loss. However, this may be unavoidable at a time of life when ones body is changing its proportions drastically, and puberty is driving the body and imagination towards new impulses. In addition to an increased interest in intimacy with the other sex, one is confronted with too many conflicting possibilities and choices. Adolescents not only help one another through such discomfort by forming cliques and stereotyping themselves, their ideals, and their enemies, but also adamantly test each other’s capacity for sustaining loyalties in the midst of inevitable conflict and values. Erikson explains that adolescence is a vital regenerator in the process of social evolution, and youth can offer loyalties and energies both to the conversation of that which continues to feel true and to the revolutionary correction of that which has lost its regenerative significance (Erikson, p. 255). This further explains Erikson’s take on the ever-evolving process of forming ones identity. It is throughout childhood that tentative crystallizations of identity take place, which make the individual feel and believe some sort of identity has formed, only

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