Erikson’s End Stage of Development

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As human beings age, according to Erik Erikson, they go through developmental stages that help to create and transform their personalities. If needs are met and the ego is gratified, then the individual is able to move on to the next challenge. Onward they march in life and in stage until they find the end level: integrity versus despair. This has been categorized as adults 65 years and older by Erikson. Here, people are to reminisce and judge their lives in terms of merit or disappointment. Erikson himself had a lot to comb through in his later years.

Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany just after the turn of the twentieth century. It is known that he was a product of an affair out of wedlock. He did not find this out until later in life, and it might have been his original inspiration for developing his psychosocial and personality theories. In the thirties, Erikson went to a psychoanalytic school with Anna Freud, the daughter of famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. There he learned how poke into a person’s mind and access their deep rooted fears and feelings. He then moved to the United States following graduation to evade the Nazis (Erik Erikson, 2011).

Without the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree, Erikson accomplished some amazing feats. He was the first psychoanalyst of children in Boston, worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a professor at both Harvard and Yale (2011). During this time he observed and created his most famous theory, his stages of psychosocial development.

There are eight stages in his theory in all (Johnston, 2009). The idea is that as one ages, they are faced with a specific conflict for each stage. If they meet these conflicts head on and have positive outcomes, t...

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...n old age is contingent upon the decisions and achievements of today.

Works Cited

Berk, L. (2010). Development Through the Lifespan (5th ed.). (J. Mosher, Ed.) Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Erik Erikson. (2011, September 4). Retrieved September 4, 2011, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson

Erikson's stages of psychosocial development. (2011, September 1). Retrieved September 4, 2011, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson's_stages_of_psychosocial_development

Harder, A. F. (2002 (revised 2009)). The Developmental Stages of Erik Erikson. Retrieved September 4, 2011, from Learing Place Online.com: http://www.learningplaceonline.com/stages/organize/Erikson.htm

Johnston, J. E. (2009). The Complete Idiots Guide to Psychology (4th ed.). Indianapolis, Indiana: Alpha Books.

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