Erik Erikson 's Explanation Of Psychosocial Development

Erik Erikson, a well known developmental theorist, developed his theory about stages of human development from birth to death by using Freud 's work as a starting point. According to Erikson, personality develops in a series of stages. Erikson found out that children experience conflicts which affect their development. He described the internal conflict which children go through in developmental stages using the term ‘crisis’ and are based on either developing a psychological quality, or failing to develop that quality (Bee & Boyd 2003). During this period of development, chances of developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality are equal. He believes that the personal identity and future development of a person are determined by the way he or she resolves the series of conflicts they go through.

Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development was the first theory that demonstrated the development from “womb-to-tomb.” His theory posited three tenets, the first that each era in life had a developmental crisis, and that at each period there was the opportunity for growth and development. Each developmental stage poses a developmental crisis that is central to that age, and as stated in Erikson’s second tenet, if there is an interruption in the development of one of the stages, the stages following will be effected. Though each developmental stage has one fundamental stage that is being worked on, Erikson’s third tenet states that the challenges of all of the other stages are still present; although there is one crisis that is

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,

Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1902. Because his mother was Jewish and his father was not, he was often bullied in school. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, so his Jewish peers mocked him for standing out and being different, and his peers at school teased him simply for being Jewish. His own internal conflict with his identity sparked his interest in identity formation and development. Although he never actually received a degree in medicine or psychology, he became friends with Anna Freud who helped him study psychoanalysis. Erikson supported and was influenced by many of Sigmund Freud’s ideas. Freud had a theory on development, he called it the 5 stages of psychosexual development, this is one of the theories that Erikson

The second theory examined is Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development. Each stage in Erikson’s theory involves a conflict/crisis that a person must work through to evolve their personality. Rosenthal (1981) explains that, “Each stage arises because a new dimension of social interaction

20 is a strange age, you don’t have the excuse of being a teenager to fall back on but people still treat you like a child. Since high school, I’ve been interested in psychology, a topic many people engage in because as humans, we all naturally try to learn more about ourselves as a whole, but also as individuals. Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development mark the eight points people go through from infancy to elder hood. Based on Erikson’s theory, twenty year olds are at the end of adolescence where we wonder who we are and what we can be, as well as being at the beginning of early adulthood where we have formed most of our identity but are also now trying to find love and where we fit into the world.

Rachel Getting Married is a movie about a drug addict who 's coming home from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding. The main character’s name is Kim. In the movie, she is shown to have many issues going on, ranging from an incomplete stage of Erikson 's to symptoms of depression. Throughout the movie, she goes through many emotional turmoils and drama, which changes her behavior.

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.

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.

Since the development of Erik Erikson’s psychosocial model of development in the 1960s, it has become one of the most widely used measurements for studying emotional and personality development across the human lifespan (Dunkel & Harbke, 2017). Erikson’s model contains eight developmental stages, beginning in infancy and progressing until old age, and as a person ages they begin to pass through the stages, with a new psychological crisis arising at each stage (Svetina, 2014). Whitbourne, Sneed and Sayer (2009) describe how the outcome of each crisis is met with identity attainment and new personal adaptations (positive outcome), or with an incoherent identity (negative outcome). Additionally, each new stage allows for the reassessment of previous achievements, and in some cases, failures (Dunkel & Harbke, 2017). Erikson’s model is commonly recognised as a developmental ladder – each previous stage lays a foundation before an individual can progress toward the next stage (Malone, Liu, Valliant, Rentz & Waldinger, 2016). It is important to note that whilst they are referred to as “stages”, they should be viewed as being on a continuum rather than fixed categories (Dunkel & Harbke, 2017).

According to Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, Neveah is in middle adolescence, which is focused on the conflict of identity verses role confusion (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). The developmental characteristics of middle adolescents include sexual identity, role experimentation, moral development, and self-discovery (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Adolescents are evaluating how they fit into society and more specifically their social sphere. During this time, friends, social groups, and cultural trends greatly impact the adolescent. According to Gibbs (2015), at this stage in development it is critical to be valued and accepted by a peer group. To evaluate Neveah’s stage of development, her ethnicity, immigration, and history of childhood abuse must be taken into consideration. According to Ashford and LeCroy (2010), adolescent immigrants face the unique challenge of fulfilling their sense of belonging, while facing issues of acculturation and minority status. As they seek to develop their own identity, they must combine the norms, values, and culture of their minority status and the dominant Caucasian culture (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Adolescent immigrants face more discrimination as well as are hyper-cognizant of their differences in appearance and language (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). According to Chicchetti and Toth (1995), child maltreatment effects the development of attachment and affect regulation. They further state that studies

The second stage in Erikson’s psychosocial development is anal-muscular, where the crisis experienced is autonomy versus shame and doubt. During this stage, children learn how to use the toilet; being potty trained allows children a sense of control and independence. As a result of this stage, a child can either become autonomous, where they gain self-control, or they can become shameful and doubtful, where they may feel self-conscious and uncertain. If the child resolves this stage successfully, they will gain the virtue of willpower. However, if this stage is not resolved, then the child will develop the maladaptive tendency of impulsivity or the malignancy of compulsion. If the child is impulsive, they have no control over their actions,

Erik Erikson is a theorist of the psychodynamic approach who believes that development is a process we go through at different age stages in our lives and that the experiences we have socially can have an impact in how we develop through each stage, Erikson details this through eight stages which he believes depending on whether our experiences are positive or negative this will determine the outcome on how we develop. (SFEU 2007)

How is Laura’s behavior indicative of role confusion as discussed by Erik Erikson’s model of psychosocial development?

Erik Erikson is known for his psychoanalytic theory of psychosocial development comprising eight stages from infancy to adulthood. Psychologist Erik Erikson, is a major contributor to developmental psychology, who proposed a comprehensive theory of the ways that individuals develop their identity, a sense of who they are, and society's influence on that development. Erikson stated that people go through crisis at each stage of their lives. The stages each had a developmental task to be mastered. As an individual resolved these various crises an individual would have a better harmony with their social environment that they live in. If an individual could not successfully resolve a crisis, they would be” out of step”, and the individual would have a greater difficulty in their dealing with a crisis in the future. Erikson did however recognize that an individual can develop through a stage negatively and still go on with their life. Erikson stated that each of the psychological stages have a basic conflict and important event leading to growth. The theory was developed from his hundreds of clinical observations in children.