Erik Erickson Paper

Erikson was a German psychologist and psychoanalyst. He was a student of Freud, and was greatly influenced by his theories of personality development. Similarly to Winnicott, Erikson drew on his experiences as a child analyst, to inform his contributions. Erikson’s theories, like Winnicott, are highly regarded today.

He was a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. Erikson, famous neoanalyst, focused less on unconscious processes and more on conscious choice and self-direction. According to Erikson, we undergo several different stages of psychosocial development. Erikson’s stages are, in chronological order in which they unfold: trust versus mistrust; autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity versus identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair. Each stage is associated with a time of life and a general age span.

Erikson’s main contribution to psychology was his developmental theory. He developed eight psychosocial stages of development and believed that each stage presents

Erik Erikson and Sigmund Freud are different and similar in many ways. Erikson had the perspective of psychodynamic. Erikson believed that society and culture both challenge and shape up and that development proceeds throughout our lives in eight different stages and they emerge to a fixed pattern and are similar for all people. These different eight stages from Erikson presents a crisis or a conflict that the individual must resolve and must identify each crises of each stage in order to deal with the next stage. The eight stages that Erikson presented us with is; trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs inferiority, identity vs, role diffusion, intimacy vs isolation, generativity vs stagnation, and finally ego-integrity vs despair. These stages are of Erikson’s psychosocial

Erik Erikson is one of the most influential psychoanalysts of the 20th century. He developed the eight stages of psychosocial development. These stages are trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. doubt/shame, initiative vs guilt, industriousness vs inferiority, identity cohesion vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation, and ego integrity vs. despair. He focused his study on the crisis that arise in adolescence and adulthood. He explained how certain things must be achieved in different stages of your life in order to be an emotionally normal person. These needs are coincidence with each other but take effect during certain time periods of your life and can affect your future. When analyzing his work, you can definitely see how it is relevant today. Erikson’s theory is compared with Freud’s because Erikson expands on the ideas that Freud already presented. Like any theorist, there are criticism that put restraints on his work.

throughout his life was going through an identity crisis. “In Erik Erikson 's stages of

Erikson’s views on development made an addition to some aspects of Freud and deviated from some of his other emphases. Erikson proposed that we develop more “Psychosocially” than “Pyschosexually” (Freud’s framework), which crosses the entire life span. His view is deterministic in the sense that adults are effected by their childhood, but he is not reductionistic in suggesting that the entire mold of adult personality is formed only in the early years; rather there is ongoing development throughout life.

"Erikson's main contribution was to bridge the gap between the theories of psychoanalysis on the problems of human development, which emphasize private emotions, and the broader social influences that bear upon the individual. He was a strong proponent of the concept that social environment plays a major role in the development of personality. Going beyond the of a child's early life, Erikson concentrated on broader issues of peer culture, school environment, and cultural values and ideals. This led him to study the period of adolescence, in which he documented the interaction of a person's inner feelings and impulses with the world that surrounds the person."

Well, Erikson dedicated his time investigating the development of a child to adulthood. During that process, he recognizes the importance of the first four stages of the life cycle, simply because they are the “prerequisites in physiological growth, mental maturation, and social responsibility to experience and pass through the crisis of identity.” (d’Heurle & Tash, 2004, Pg. 255) Those stages are imperative for his growth, without them, his future could possibly look bleak; ultimately, become troublesome. (d’Heurle & Tash, 2004, Pg. 259) The others were equally important and slightly more reliant on the earlier teachings, which will also prepare the child for either an accomplished life and a hopelessly, depressed and despair life.

Identity is central to Erikson's thinking. Erikson coined the term "identity crisis". Erikson lived such a crisis in his own life. At a young age Erikson found out his father was really his stepfather. Erik Homberger Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany to his mother

Erik Erikson may have had Freudian training, but he was certainly no Freud clone. Instead, Erikson took Freud’s ideas n put them through a sympathetic filter, turning the psychosexual into psychosocial and turning the focus from the mouth, anus, and genitals to the identity, conscience, and mindset. Carol Hoare (2005) asserts that Erikson “shifted thought upward in consciousness, outward to the social world, and forward throughout the complete life span” (p. 19). Erikson was one of the better revisionists of Freud’s theories and ultimately improved those theories through his revisions.

In entering adolescence, people heavily contemplate their ego identity. In the early 1900s, theorist Erik Erikson believed in eight stages of ego development from birth to death. For the purpose of this paper I have

Erik Erikson was a 20th century developmental psychologist. The development of identity have been one of Erikson's greatest concerns in his own life as well as in his theory, for he coined the term “identity crisis." As an older adult, he wrote about his adolescent “identity confusion", it can be found as one of the stages in his theory of psychosocial development. Erikson's theory emphasizes the search for identity during the adolescent years. Being split into 8 stages, the theory fixes approximate ages and outcomes from the time of birth to late adulthood.

Erikson was a psychologist who was greatly influenced by Freud. Although influenced by Freud there are some differences in there developmental stages. Erikson believed that development in an individual was molded by society, culture, and environment. While Freud’s belief was that development is in some way is influenced by the fixation of sexual interest of different areas of the body. The stages in Erikson’s development theory outline how important social experiences can shape us. While Freud’s theory is mainly based on ones sexuality. Additionally the other significant difference between Erikson’s and Freud’s theories is the outcome of a particular stage. Erikson believed that the outcome of a certain stage was not permanent and that it could be changed later on in life. While Freud presumed that if an individual became fixated on a stage problems associated with that stage would be carried on through life.

Erikson’s theory followed Freud´s and it was based on many of Freud´s ideas. He had studied at Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter in Vienna. Erikson´s and Freud´s theories have similarities. Both theories admit the importance of the unconscious on development. They also both separates development into stages of a person´s life and handle similar age spans for these developmental stages. However, there are also differences that exist between names of the stages and the developmental subjects that are assumed during each stage. Part of the reason for that is that each psychologist has his own exclusive view of what causes a person’s development.