Erikson's psychosocial stages of development

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Erikson's psychosocial stages of development

Introduction

The aim and objective of this essay is to discuss and analyze the development stages than an individual passes through in his life such as, lost of a job, alcohol and drug use and bereavement. This essay aims to analyze those stages by using Erikson's psychosocial stages of development.

Discussion

Lifespan development is a process starts from the birth of a human being and continues until death. The development begins with the creation of a fetus from a single cell. When a child is born, his immediate environment begins to influence his development. The main developmental periods are childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. Each era's transition involves necessary change in the personality of the individual's life, and sometime take up to six years to complete the change.

Erikson's psychosocial stages of development

In his theory of psychosocial stages of personality development, Erikson considered the integration of the personality as the ultimate stage of development. He conceived the process of forming a personal identity as an intermediate stage of adolescence, and a pathway for achieving it (Erikson, 1950). For him, the personality of the individual is born of the relationship between personal expectations and limitations of the cultural environment. For Erikson, life revolves around the person and the environment. Thus, each step is a step forward, stagnation or retrogression compared with the other stages.

Erikson identified eight stages of the psychosocial development of a person which are:

Basic trust vs. Mistrust

Autonomy vs. Shame and Dou

Initiative vs. Guilt

Diligence vs. Inferiority

Identity vs. Identity Diffusion

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Generativity vs. Stagnation

Integrity vs. Despair

These stages are very important in an individual's life and the critical issue is how they pass each level without weakening the psychosocial pressure. He developed eight different stages of development; all these stages were characterized by crisis. But he also stated that if these stages were successfully crossed, the child was developed in a different way with a positive emotional and social ability (Christiansen & Palkovitz, 1998).

Description of each stage of development

The eight stages of psychosocial development include:

Trust vs. Mistrust (birth to walking)

In this stage it is important for the infant to be in a healthy environment because it is the beginning of the life any neglecting or abuse can destroy the ability of trust. They need to be given a lot of care, since this will build hope and they will have stronger faith in things that will turn out to be fine. The First crisis is trust versus mistrust fundamental, which usually occurs during the period of 0 to 18 months of life. During the first year or so of life, newborns are almost totally at the mercy of those around them. Whether infants are given loving care and have their needs met or whether their cries go unnoticed is the first turning point in the development of personality. The child whose needs are met develops a sense of basic trust. For this child the world is a ...