Erik Erikson 's Theory Of Psychology

Adolescence is popularly known to be a very tumultuous stage in a person’s life. In the adolescent stage (also coined the identity vs. role confusion stage by theorist Erik Erikson) bodies are changing rapidly, emotions are unfamiliar and unexplainable, and refraining from succumbing to peer pressure is more challenging than ever.

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.

In this stage, children enter school, and their teacher becomes an important figure in their lives. During this stage, the child’s peer group, such as their classmates, becomes much more significant, and the child begins to feel the need to win approval by displaying typical abilities that society constructs. If the child is encouraged in their initiative attempts, they develop a stronger sense of confidence in their ability to achieve set goals, but if the child is unable to develop the set skill, they begin to feel inferior.

For Erikson (1950) adolescence is a period during which individuals seek to avoid dangers of role diffusion and identity confusion by establishing a sense of personal identity. Individuals have to find answers for two major questions “who am I?” and “what is my place in society?” Identity is a “conscious sense of individual uniqueness” and an “unconscious striving for a continuity of experience” (Erikson, 1968, p. 208).

A theory proposed by Erik Erikson (1950, 1963) promotes the eight development stages of adolescents through adulthood by comparing the transitory periods. During each stage, the person experiences a psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for identity and personality development. The first stage is trust vs. mistrust, this stage starts at birth and end at the age of one year. This stage also explains the safety that the infant is getting from the caregiver. For example, if the infant receives constant care, they will develop a sense of trust which will be carried out with them to other and future relationships. The second stage is autonomy vs. shame and doubt; this stage occurs at the age of two to three years old. In this stage, the child is mainly discovering their skills and abilities. The third stage is Initiative vs. Guilt; this stage occurs around age three to age

Erik Homberger Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfort, Germany. Erikson was born to his Jewish mother Karla Abrahamsen, and his biological father who was an unnamed Danish man who abandoned him before he was born. During his school years, he studied art and different languages instead of chemistry and biology. When he graduated he was interested in becoming an artist. During the 1920’s he decided to travel Europe, where he had to sleep under bridges. After traveling around Europe for a year, he decided to enroll in an art school back in Germany. He stayed at the art school for several years. Then he began to teach art and other subjects to American children who came to Vienna for Freudian training. Erikson was admitted to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1933 he moved to Boston, where he filled a position at Harvard medical school as America’s first child analyst. While he taught at Yale and Berkley, he did his famous studies on the modern life of the Lakota and the Yurok. Erikson is known for being a prolific writer. He has wrote many books and essays such as Childhood and Society (1950), Youngman Luther (1958), Youth: change and challenge (1963), Etc. Erikson went on to teach at a clinic in Massachusetts then back to Harvard before he retired in 1970. In 1994 Erikson passed away at the age of 92.

Erik focused most of ideas and discussions towards the adolescent development, he referred to his own identity crisis as questions that surrounded these roots (Friedman, 1999). Erickson was born to a Jewish-Danish mother who possibility had sexual affair with male who was not Jewish-Danish. Where his mother’s family sent her while pregnant to Germany to have her baby. At the age 3 years old, his mother married his pediatrician Dr. Homburger only under the conditions that she never communicate his origins (Friedman, 1999). Yet Erikson believed that family story that was provided was not essentially true. Due to this conflict he lived in restraint because of his origins, this enhanced his creativity and provided him

Once I’ve finished my reading on the different theories of childhood development, I came to the conclusion that there are three theories that I can apply and relate to my childhood development. The three theories I believe best explains my development during my childhood are Psychosocial, Operant Conditioning, and Social Learning Theory. Each of these theories played a role in a different stage of my life growing up. The Psychosocial Theory is divided into eight stages, each stage having a task or crisis that needs to be overcome. These challenges and task continue to shape and change us throughout our life span. One of the eight stages is identity vs. role confusion, this particular stage correlates with my high school years. During this time,

"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."

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.

Adolescent is a disconcerting time when there are many life changes emotionally, physically, socially and psychologically. There are unrealistic expectations which lead to disappointment and rejection. The maturity level of adolescents makes them feeling life is not fair and things will never change to benefit them. Erikson’s identity vs. role confusion is an example of how developing into owns identity can be challenging, especially when learning how to transition into adulthood. Adolescence is one of the most importance stages in life where the mind and body goes through varies changes. When changes cause impairment or interfere with activities of daily living it results in

Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development is a behavioral theory that is a continuation of Freud's psychosocial stages. In addition to Freud's theory, Erikson also believed that the ego can make a contribution to to development along with the id and superego. Erikson emphasized that the ego learns different skills and attitudes that can affect the individuals contribution to society (Berk & Meyers, 2016). Erikson’s theory is composed of eight stages; basic trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus role confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and integrity versus despair. While Erikson’s theory has eight different stages my main focus is on his fourth stage, industry versus inferiority, as that is the stage focused toward children ages six through eleven. Within this stage, children in school are learning to work well with others. When children put in the effort and successfully work well with others they develop a sense of self-confidence and start becoming more self-aware. However, inferiority can develop in children if they are experiencing negative events within their home or social lives. Children can also begin to feel inferior if

Adolescence is both a social and cultural construct as well as biological one, it is the developmental period where one transition from being a child to adult and face biological, psychological, and social challenges. This challenging, and important time in between childhood and adulthood has caused a lot of interest in the psychological field and a number of theories have been developed in order to try and explain the different stages of development. One of the most significant models of psychosocial development was created by Erikson (1963) and the stage related to adolescents is known as the “Identity vs. Role-Diffusion”, where the one is in constant pursuit of a coherent sense of self during the teenage years. When the teenager is unable to put together aspects of themselves they experience role-diffusion. Later on Elkind (1967) introduced his theory of adolescent egocentrism, explaining the increase in preoccupation with oneself during the teenage years. Kohlberg (1969) quickly followed up with his theory of moral development, in order to examine how adolescents develop their ability to solve ethical dilemmas. Another challenge teenagers need to face is mental health. The psychological part of striving for independence, while still struggling with identity formation and having poor coping strategies can have serious consequences and lead to mental illnesses, such as depression which is a growing concern among youths. This essay will further examine to what extent

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.

According to Erikson’s theory, as the individual transits into adolescence, he or she begins to express the high interest in understanding and trying to make sense of the self and its qualities. This process includes self-awareness, self-conscious and self-examination ( Brinthaupt & Lipka, 2012). Porfeli, Lee & Vondracek (2013) believed that in the early to middle adolescence, the individuals are struggling to identify the balance between developing a unique individual identity while still being accept by the general society. Therefore, it explains the reason why individual may develop high consciousness towards to criticism in social environment. Simultaneously, Hoffnung, M., Hoffnung, R. J., Pause, Jeffrey, Burton, Hine (2013) stated that adolescences are able to evaluate self identity from multiple perspectives as well as able to take others opinions into