Erik+Erikson's+Psychosocial+Theory

= = =__**Biography Erik Erikson:**__ =

 After his father’s brief affair with his mother, Erik Erikson was born June 15, 1902. Abandoned, he was raised by a Jewish pediatrician who married his mother at three years of age. Erikson seemed to suffer an identity crisis, not knowing his real father and commonly going by Erik Homgurger instead of Erikson. He was considered the ideal Aryan appearance because of his blue eyes and blond hair, but was still teased over his stepfathers religion. Erikson decided not to attend college in his youth and instead took up.

 This move turned out to be a great step towards his true career. While in art school he was commissioned to draw portraits of Dorothy Burlinghams 4 children. Dorothy and her friend Anna Freud went on to convince Erikson to become a child analyses under her training. At first he rarely, met Freud who was currently suffering from mouth cancer at the time. And he had a difficult time relating to the other disciples because of his lack of PhD and feeling of being a servant for the master. Upon Hitler’s assumption of power he fled from Germany, and went with his wife live in the United States. Where, he became the first child analyst in Boston. During this time he worked on books, analyst both poor and wealthy children, taught at the University of California and analyzed Hitler’s speeches during the war. After receiving an appointment at a psychoanalytic child’s center he went on to write, “Childhood and Society” making him famous. His interests were spread over a wide rage of area. He studied combat crises in troubled American soldiers in World War II, child-rearing practices among the Sioux in South Dakota and the Yurok along the Pacific Coast, and social behavior in India. Erikson was always concerned with the rapid social changes in America and wrote about issues such as the generation gap, racial tensions, juvenile delinquency, changing sexual roles, and the dangers of nuclear war. He went on to become a professor at Harvard University, campaigning for the rights of children and elderly and put an emphasis on people rather than nations. **And to think** he did all this **//without//** receiving a **PhD**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Erik Erikson died May12, 1994.

=__**Erikson's Basic Concept:**__ = = =

Erik Erikson’s concept of Legacy and Generativity was the main focus of all his research. How to help the future generations and our legacy we leave behind. You are known only for a moment on this earth and in that moment what do you want to leave for the generations behind you and what do you want others to remember you for? Our footprint today is not the same as the footprint Erickson was talking about, todays footprint is more about environmental disasters and with Erikson he was talking about a personal footprint, what we are known for, what we did with our time on this earth and how it will affect future generations. Examples are, the EPA for vehicles and the effect on the world, a personal footprint is more what kind of person was I here on earth. Was I compassionate, did I try to help the human race become a better one, morally and ethically? Todays society focuses more on the environment of earth rather than the association or interaction humans have with one another. Every great company, or organization as every great friendship can and will be destroyed from within its own self, Erikson believed this whole heartedly and it has come to pass.

=__The 8 Psychosocial Stages: __=

__Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust __ Erikson’s first theory centers on the infant’s basic needs that are or are not being met by the primary care taker, usually the mother. The infant is at the mercy of the parents to receive, nourishment, comfort and one on one interaction. The infant’s basic understanding of the world around them comes from the interaction of the parents; this will follow them into the next stages of their lives. If the parents fulfill the infant’s basic needs of, warmth, food, shelter, security and one on one interaction, then this will secure and instill the infant’s concept of trust. If the parents should fail at providing these things the infant will undoubtedly have a mistrust conception of the world. So it is true to say that you are whom raises you, that you are a product of your environment around you. The only developmental task in infancy is to learn whether or not others who have contact with the infant, such as caretakers, babysitters, nannies’, or daycare workers, meet the infant’s basic needs. If these people whom associate with the infant provide the basic essential needs for the infant, then the infant will learn trust; that others, other than the parents are dependable and reliable. Children, who are abused at even the earliest age of infancy, will learn that society cannot be trusted. The first stage lays the basis for how the child will act and develop in the next stages of their lives. __Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt __ This is usually the stage of a lot of headaches for most parents. Toddlers (age 2-3 years) become extremely curious about the world around them. The toddler will begin to venture away from those they have built trust with now that they can move around on their own. To achieve autonomy in this stage, parents must let their child explore the world around them without being too harsh and protective while also not giving to much freedom or pushing the toddler to do more than it is ready for. This is a hard balance for most to achieve. If parents end up being too critical, to open with their toddler, or do too much for their toddler, it is inevitable that shame and doubt will appear. Parents that are too critical of their toddler instill in the toddler that anything they do is wrong and become extremely doubtful of every action. On the other hand, parents that let their toddler do whatever it wants with no restrictions and do not pay attention lead the toddler to believe that nothing they do is good enough because they do not receive feedback from the parent saying that their actions were good or bad. Also, parents that do too much for their toddler have the same problem as parents who let their toddler do whatever they want, except their toddler will never learn to do anything on their own. The toddler will also have doubts in their ability to learn. Shame and doubt may seem like a bad thing for toddlers to experience but everything is good in moderation. Without some shame and doubt, impulsiveness shows up later in the toddler’s life. Impulsiveness is a problem for many teenagers and even adults, causing them to do things such as spend too much money, jump from relationship to relationship, or do things that cause physical harm to themselves or others. However, moderation is the key! Too much shame and doubt can cause compulsiveness to appear in a toddler’s later life. Compulsive people are also known as perfectionists. The resolution of this stage is will power. If a toddler develops will power they are on the right path to a healthy future. __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 26.6667px;">Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">From age 4-5 years, children’s imagination is emerging rapidly to help them understand the world around them. Children at this age have a yearning to learn and to perform tasks that make them feel useful. When parents help encourage imagination of future ideas and then interact with their children to make those ideas reality, it encourages initiative. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">With the development of imagination and initiative, comes the development of moral judgment. With moral judgment comes guilt. A child can be guilty of actions and feel guilty of their actions. Erikson has an Oedipal Complex in this stage of development. When the parents encourage a child to grow up in an abusive manner or to early this is what causes guilt. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Once again, balance is the key! Too much initiative with too little guilt causes ruthlessness. Adults who are ruthless are also known as sociopaths. Also, an abundance of guilt with minimal initiative causes inhibition. Inhibited adults stay extremely isolated so that their guilt is kept to a minimum. Developing purpose is the resolution to this stage and children that do develop purpose stay on the path to a healthy life. __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 26.6667px;">Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">From the age of 6 years old to 12 years old, children are using social support to learn norms of their environment. Children at this stage thrive on learning rules. These children develop industry when the have positive emotions about making and following through with plans. If the social support that is supposed to be helping the child learn the norms and rules of society is too harsh on the child, than inferiority develops. Discrimination can play a major factor in this and teaches children that it only matters who you are not how hard you work to society. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">We see the balancing act yet again in this stage. Too much industry is known as narrow virtuosity. This is usually seen in child stars that have nothing else in life except the thing they are famous for. Too much inferiority causes inertia. Inertia causes people to avoid any area that feel like they have failed at or been criticized in their life. Competency is mostly industry mixed with the right amount of inferiority and is the resolution to this stage. __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 26.6667px;">Stage 5: Identity vs. Identity Confusion __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">This stage begins with the start of puberty and is usually resolved by the time a person is 18 years old. Adolescents are trying to change from a child to an adult and are learning how to do that by watching the behaviors of adults they see on a regular basis. Adolescents who do this properly have reached ego identity. To reach ego identity, adolescents must have good role models to look up to and clear rites of passage. With these things, the adolescent will know how he or she should behave as they get older and will also have clear times of knowing they are considered more and more like an adult. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Some adolescents do not have the right role models or clear rites of passage and suffer from identity confusion. These adolescents cannot figure out who they are as a person. Erikson suggests that adolescents who start to become confused need to have a psychological moratorium. This will help the adolescent figure out who they are and what they want out of life. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The balance of ego identity and identity confusion is also severe in this stage. Too much ego identity causes fanaticism**.** These people are fanatics about their role in society and tend to make others feel that way too. More severe though is when there is too much identity confusion and repudiation occurs. When an adolescent repudiates they try to isolate themselves by withdrawing from society or engaging in drugs and alcohol or join groups that force you to take on an identity that they create. By balancing these things we reach the fidelity resolution. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 28px;">__Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">This stage is characterized by the two poles of Intimacy vs. Isolation and represents individuals who are between the ages of 20-35. During the earlier stages, strengths allowed the opposing genders to merge in cooperative communication. For example, teens who are “in love” see themselves as being reflected in another idealized other, but do not actively attempt to try and distinguish themselves from the other person. One pole of this stage is intimacy, which is seen as the ability to fuse your identity with another individual’s without the fear that you will be losing something yourself within the process. With this broad definition in mind, Erikson foresaw new theories pertaining to marital success. He believed that intimacy is what makes possible a truly meaningful marriage. Isolation is the other pole in the crisis within this stage. It is characterized by the failure to gain close and cooperative relationships with the same and especially the opposing gender, such that partners’ identities are important to the other individual, but also separate and discrete from one’s own. Isolation hinders the individual to “infantile fixations and prevailing immature tendencies, which interfere with work and love. Intimacy brings the strength of this period where love is seen as the guardian of cultural and personal style, which bonds the affiliations of competition and cooperation for example, into a “way of life.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 28px;">__Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The crisis at this stage is generativity vs. stagnation. Within this stage, an individual begins to take one’s place in society and to also help in the development of whatever it is that society produces. Individuals within this stage are 60-75 years old according to Erikson and it is during the maturity of adulthood that the accumulation of wisdom leads to the assumption of the “teacher” role. During this stage is where individuals strive for generativity, which is defined as the concern for establishing and guiding the next generation. The failure of this pole leads to stagnation, which is the arrest of the ripening process that is characterized as the inability to channel previous development into the creation of the next generation. Inevitably, the failure of this pole comes through in the next generation as the “aggravation of estrangements” in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Care, which is described as the strength of maturity is the driving force behind the utilization of methods that are proven, which help to meet the needs of the next generation. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 28px;">__Stage 8: Ego Integrity vs. Despair__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The crisis at this time, which is age 75 till death focuses on contributing to the continuity of the human condition versus distraction. The poles for this stage are associated with wholeness and completeness vs. disintegration and defeat. Integrity is described as “an emotional integration faithful to the image bearers of the past and ready to take leadership in the present.” Integrity is the continuity that comes from having a solid foundation from the past, which contributes to the present and then will project into the future. A lack of resolution in this stage leads to despair, which is a feeling that time is too short for the attainment of integrity and the subsequent contributions to the connection between other generations. Despair can lead to bitterness and eventually leads to psychological death. The strength that comes from this crisis is wisdom, which is a “detached and yet active concern with life in the face of death.” With wisdom, individuals are able to accept death and one’s role is then assured. The main point within this stage is a developmental one, where only in old age can true wisdom actually develop in those who are gifted in that sense. In old age, some wisdom must develop further, if only to the extent that an old person comes to appreciate and typify the "wisdom of ages."

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> =__Support and Criticism:__=

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Empirical research has supported that Erikson’s theory that positively resolving crises throughout the stages correlates with self-worth, however, his thinking processes have been called into question and some of his concepts remain ambivalent and fail to meet the standards of scientific support. The lack of academic credentials achieved by Erik Erikson have made his work the easy target for criticism, yet the prominence of his theories demonstrates that even without academic training, Erikson’s ideas were not only valid, but original and significant. Psychologists have gathered data from numerous studies that support the relationship between each stage and the corresponding age group and confirm that resolving the crisis helps to promote self-esteem and contentment. Differences have been found between the genders in relation to way a specific crisis occurs and types of resolution, but overall his theories maintain significance throughout different cultures, making his ideas universal and thus more credible. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The concept of a mid-life crisis was studied and analyzed by two psychologists who found support that this crisis reflects the battle between Erikson’s concepts of generativity versus stagnation. Daniel Levinson gathered a sample of middle-aged men and his study found that a large proportion (80%) of his participants found difficulty resolving the conflict between their inner-self and the external world. This transition occurs when illusions are left behind and dreams that were never accomplished have to be discarded in order to come to terms with reality. His study found that the Jungian process of individuation occurs when the person resolves their conflict between the inner and external world and that death becomes a more prominent motivator. He found positive correlations between individuation and generativity and also discovered that the idea of dying caused individuals to generate more in order to leave behind a legacy to future generations. Gail Sheehy, on the other hand, studied the effects of the mid-life crisis on women. She found that a woman’s crisis tends to relate to all of her children going off to school and her waning ability to conceive. This may cause her to become more career driven to find a purpose or have an affair in response to fears of fading beauty and no longer being able to pass on her genes. A woman who is unable to achieve status in a career field may become stagnant during this phase, but those who are capable of finding careers suitable to their educational credentials are able to generate more, thus resolving the conflict in a more positive manner. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">A questionnaire study in South Africa that included men and women who were both black and white helped to establish that Erikson’s stages could be applied universally. The study focused on the concepts of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, intimacy, and generativity to see the relationship between a person’s well-being and the positive pole of each stage. The results confirmed the hypothesis of psychologists Osche and Plug that the positive resolution at each stage would be conducive to a continual positive pattern and thus enhance a person’s contentment. Although differences between the races at each stage were noted, this study was important in terms of enforcing the universality of Erikson’s theory since it was successfully applied to other countries. A study that incorporated school children, their teachers, and their parents focused on the stage of industry versus inferiority. The results supported the concept of industry being valid for this age group, showing that an industry score positively correlated with test scores and achievement in school. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Numerous studies have found that generativity related to many personality traits and positive behaviors. Open-minded, extraverted individuals who are conscientious tend to demonstrate generativity which takes its operational form not only through care of the family, but through societal obligations, as well. Generativity does not exclude those without children from its base, since it can be manifested through volunteerism and duties to one’s community. An analysis by Patricia Cooper studies the manifestation of Erikson’s initiative vs. guilt in children’s books. She notes that the central character, Max, from //Where the Wild things Are//, was the poster boy Erikson used for this stage. Max acts against his mother and when punished, travels to an imaginary land taking initiative throughout all these stages, but ultimately wants to go home and maintains the capacity to feel guilty for his bad behavior. His travel through this imaginary world shows him that initiative can lead to unwanted places (as he experiences monsters), yet when he comes back to reality and is with his mother again, the limits of taking initiative become clearer to Max and he can begin to resolve this conflict in order to move on to the next stage of his development: school.



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= = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Erikson’s contributions are irrefutable, but his concepts are often disputed due to his lack of educational criteria. Many claim that his ideas are ambiguous and often inconsistent. Declaring autonomy as one stage and initiative as a separate stage seems perplexing to many. Autonomy means to be independent and taking initiative is viewed as an attribute of independence, so there appears to be overlapping meaning in these terms. Erikson describes fidelity as an ideology, yet places that concept in the adolescent stage, which perplexes many psychologists. If fidelity is an ideology as he described, it seems more appropriate to place the concept into the later stage of young adulthood when ideologies become prominent, not during teenage years. Also, his stages seem to blur and may not be as epigenesist as Erikson claimed. The study produced in South Africa found evidence that counters the idea that the stages occur in succession of one another and seems to support stages occurring simultaneously. Correlations between the positive pole at each stage and contentment were apparent whether or not the stage was resolved. = = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The most obvious criticism of Erikson is the lack of application for his theories. There is no type of therapy that Erikson advocated for and he seemed to have more a proclivity to labeling crises than actually solving them. This may explain why there are so few followers of his work among modern psychologists. Its lack of practicality in solving real-world problems remains one of the most prominent criticisms of Erik Erikson’s work today. = =

=<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">References =

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Allen, B. P. (2006). Moving toward, away from, and against others: Karen Horney. In //Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity// (5th ed., pp. 149-172). New York: Pearson Education Inc. (Original work published 1994)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Boeree, C. G. (2006). //Erik Erikson//. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from http://webspace.ship.edu/‌cgboer/‌erikson.html

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Cherry, K. (2011). //Who was Erik Erikson?// Retrieved October 9, 2011, from About.com website: http://psychology.about.com/‌od/‌psychologystudyguides/‌a/‌eriksonguide.htm

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12px;">Cooper, Patricia M. (2007). Teaching Young Children Self-regulation through Children’s Books. //Early Childhood Educational Journal, 34,// 315-322.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">//Edpc 5341: Theories of counseling//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 9, 2011, from http://faculty.utep.edu/‌Portals/‌1669/‌5341/‌edpc5341_handout.pdf

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">//Erikson’s psychosocial development theory//. (20111). Retrieved October 9, 2011, from www.businessballs.com website: http://www.businessballs.com/‌erik_erikson_psychosocial_theory.htm

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Harder, A. (2002). //the developmental stages of Erik Erikson//. Retrieved October 9, 2011, from http://www.support4change.com/‌stages/‌cycles/‌Erikson.html

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Langley, T. (200). //Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development//. Retrieved October 9, 2011, from Henderson Sate University website: http://fac.hsu.edu/‌langlet/‌lectures/‌dev/‌Erikson/‌erik_erikson.htm

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