Erik Erikson 's Theory Of Development

O stands for openness to experience: how 'open' one is to exploring the world and gaining new experiences and making new memories

When figuring out how to frame my childhood through a theoretical lens I realized that I had a lot of internal frustrations in response to my social environment. Erikson’s stages of development (McLeod, 2008) focuses on internal conflict of the child within a psychosocial framework. Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development were derived from Freud’s psychosexual stages yet instead of focusing sexual desires Erikson’s theory sees the child’s conflict between self and environment. Within each stage there is a crisis involving psychological needs and society. It is important that the crisis is solved in order to develop certain traits and to successfully move on to the next stage of development.

I chose to concentrate on Erikson's sixth stage of developmental theory (Intimacy vs. isolation) as it applies to my personal life experience from my young adulthood to present time. I am a mother kids it will help me to understand each stage and being able to support them in difficult life trying.

Erik Erikson created a model of stages of development. He was influenced by Freud, but also had differing opinions. His model contains eight stages ranging from birth till late adulthood. Erikson emphasized that there is conflict and resolution in each stage, and that the person is always working through this conflict in hopes of resolution. No person will flow through the stages identically, since he provides two ends of a spectrum for each stage there is a lot of room for variation.

This paper explores the developmental theory created by Erik Erikson, which focuses on the major psychosocial dilemmas that a person struggles with over the course of their entire life. Following a brief biography of Erikson’s life, the paper will touch upon the 8 stages between birth and death wherein the most psychologically significant of these dilemmas take place. It will discuss the psychological impact of trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, and industry versus inferiority on early development from infancy through childhood. It will then cover the significance of identity versus role confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and integrity versus despair on the mind from adolescence to late adulthood. The importance of the specific positive concept in each struggle, including the accepted ways in which to help those concepts to flourish and grow, will be explored. Conversely, the likely causes of each of the negative concepts and their psychological impact on stunting the emotional growth of the individual will also be discussed, along with the influences that many of these concepts impact each other both directly in the next stage of development and indirectly many stages later.

Erikson believed that external factors such as parents and society play a major role in development from childhood to adulthood. Out of the eight stages Erikson proposed, the first four stages of development depend on what is done to a person while stages five through eight depend primarily upon what a person does. The first stage (basic trust vs mistrust) occurs in infancy where the mother and fathers care taking skills may have a lasting impact on their child. If not properly cared for, the child may develop a feeling of insecurity and worthlessness. The second stage (autonomy vs shame) occurs during early childhood and it’s when the child is just beginning to develop a self-esteem and autonomy as they begin to learn new skills and know right from wrong. If a child is well cared

1 Describe the growth and developmental tasks that were displayed by the child you interacted with in this setting (Erikson, Piaget, and Freud). Were these tasks age appropriate? Did you assess any developmental challenges in the client that you interacted with? How were they dealt with (by you and by the health care team)?

Susan is a sixty-seven year old woman. She worked in human resources for a significant portion of her life, however, in her later middle adult life decided to return to school to study to be a registered nurse (RN). This was tough for Susan considering she was a mother of five—her eldest being in her late twenties and her youngest in elementary school. When asked to reminisce over her life, Susan had numerous interesting stories from her life and shared much wisdom. If one analyzes Susan’s lifespan interview using Erikson’s theory, they will realize that she has always been conquering developmental conflict at each life stage.

Erik Erikson is a famous German-born American psychologist, who developed his own psychoanalytical developmental theory. This developmental theory was aimed to identify the steps a developing human should to pass from infancy to adulthood. Erikson identified eight steps of the psychological development.

The ideas of ego identity, social interactions, and cultural influence strongly correlate with Erikson’s more specific psychosocial stages for development. The psychosocial developmental stages consist of eight stages that cover an individual’s lifetime and that continue to form personality based on experiences and relationships (McLeod, 2008). With each stage a basic conflict is presented that has to be solved in order to successfully master an important event and an outcome is expressed, whether or not the conflict was solved (McLeod, 2008).

In this research project several individuals, both parents and children were surveyed and asked various questions to see what their views on morals and values were and if teaching them had an impactful effect on children. With the secondary research conducted the teachings of morals and values will be linked to socialization as well as being looked at through different developmental theories. Many pages in the Individuals and Families, Diverse Perspectives (Holloway, Holloway & Witte, 2010) will be used to help relate the primary research to the secondary research of this project. The ways of socializing children will be mentioned as well as the concept of teaching morals and values to children and how it can be explained through different developmental theories.

People begin to change the priorities of certain aspects in their lives as they age. In late adulthood, people are keeping family and friendships closer than at other times in their lives. Friendships have a great impact in late adulthood mental health (Berk, 2010, p.473). One of the theories that focus in late adulthood is Erikson’s theory of development. It is a theory based on how people develop their identity in a series of stages from infancy to adulthood. The last stage in Erikson’s theory is called ego integrity versus despair. In this final stage, people look back on their past accomplishments in their lives to either accept their satisfaction in the past life or feel regret and despair on the goals they could have accomplished. The ones that succeed in this stage of life are satisfied with their accomplishments and they will feel that they’ve lived a well life. In this stage of life, people will go through different emotions ranging from peacefulness to loneliness. They will have to decide whether or not to rise above the conflicts that come with negative emotions.

From leaning objective 8.9, explains the development of the personality along with social interpersonal skills, and the concept of the self from infancy to adulthood, I wanted to compare the first five stages of Erikson’s theory on development to Ken Wilber’s first five stages of his nine stages, that he calls spaces. The first five stages of Erikson 's theory, which he notes as crisis, are trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, and identity versus role confusion. The first four “personal spaces,” of Wilber 's theory are the archaic, the magical, or egocentric, the mythical, and the rational. Erikson 's theory states that an emotional crisis must be successfully met for normal development. Wilber 's theory is similar in that he uses an example of a multiple story building. If one stage isn 't completely understood, but not mastered, then that floor will end up leaning, and a building like that cannot be sustained for long before its structural integrity is compromised.

Erickson has developed a psychosocial theory, which was modeled on Freud 's model of psychosexual theory. Erickson 's theory extends the number of life stages in order to encompass the entire life. Erickson expanded the principles of psychosocial development beyond childhood and theorized that the ego itself is shaped and transformed not only by biological and psychological forces, but also social factors. This was a new perspective because Freud 's theory didn 't use any other factors for development. Erickson 's “linked biological urogenital zones with particular mode of ego functioning and demonstrated how self and identity are biological, physical, logical, and socially determined.”(Berzoff, 2011)

Erik Erikson is another theorist that developed his own theory of human development from the perspective of psychosocial. Erik believes that his psychosocial development starts at birth through old age. According to Batra, “Each human being must find his or her own sense of regulation because of the interplay between the inner voice of the child, the physiological and emotional urges of the individual, and the nature of social influences” (pg. 250). Furthermore, His theory is formulated in eight different developmental stages in an individual life. Woolfolk (2007) states, in Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, he works from a foundation that emphasizes the needs of young people in relation to the society in which they grow and develop, learn, and later make their contribution (pg. 67). After analyzing each of Erikson’s stages, it seems as if they all are connected to one another. As one stage is developed it flows right into the next stage. Moreover, there could be negative ramifications with each stage. According to Coon (2006), “A psychosocial dilemma is a conflict between personal impulses and the social world” (pg. 113). Erikson’s first stage is from birth to 1yr. of age. Erikson defines this stage as trust vs. mistrust. This stage is very key, because it is the stage when the young child begins to develop a sense of the world that is around them through the interaction with their caregiver (Broderick, & Blewitt, 2015). During this stage,