More handpicked essays just for you.
General assumptions of the psychodynamic approach
General assumptions of the psychodynamic approach
Sigmund Freud contribution to the field of psychology and historical impact
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Biography Erick Erickson has made a huge contribution to the field of psychology with his developmental theory. Like Sigmund Freud, Erickson also saw that humans developed within stages of their life. With this he developed his eight psychosocial stages. Born on June 2, 1902 in Frankfort, Germany to a Jewish mother, Karla Abrahamsen and his biological father Valdemar Isidor Salomonsen. There isn’t much information on Erickson’s father because before he was even born his father abandoned his mother. Instead in 1905 his mother married Dr. Theodor Homberger who was also at the time Erickson’s pediatrician. Throughout Erickson’s youth he struggled with his identity because there wasn’t a father figure around his youth, Erickson never really knew …show more content…
With the lack of a father figure as well as not fitting in with his peers, Erickson was in a state of confusion with his identity he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud and his loss of identity, Erickson believed that personality developed through many phases life. Unlike Freud, who focused on psychosexual development, Erickson believed that the impact of social interactions and experience plays a role in development and growth. In Erickson’s psychosocial stage theory, one of the main components he focused on is the development of the ego identity. Ego can be defined as the conscious sense of self that is developed through interaction. According to Erickson, our ego is constantly changing due to the new and different interactions that we have on a daily basis. We can either hinder or strengthen our ego identity by the interactions we experience. Erickson believed that a hindered ego or an ego that isn’t developed can lead to a person feeling an inadequacy as well as losing the meaning of life. However, if a person’s ego is strengthened and mastered a person will feel accomplished as well as the sense of belonging. This feeling can also be referred to as the ego strength or ego quality. During the times of ego identity, the person’s potential of growth is high, however, the potential of failure is also present. …show more content…
Erickson states that this stage is the most important of all the stages of development because this the fundamental stage for all the others. Erickson labeled this stage as the “Trust vs. Mistrust”, during this stage an infant is completely dependent on the adult caretaker. Developing this trust is the first stage of development, if the infant is able to gain trust they would feel safe and secure. However, if the infant does not build a trust with the caretaker they would feel rejected as well as having a mistrusted in people and the world. In my opinion like Erickson stated this stage is the most crucial, every infant needs love and support early in their life, without the fundamental stage developed early during their life it could possibly hinder their development as well as leading to psychological stress. This stage could have also related to Erickson’s life as he never built any trust with a father figure. His biological father abandoned him before he was born and he was never accepted by his stepfather. This hinders his development of a trust as well as hinder his ability to find an
Erik Erikson was heavily influenced by Freud but while Freud was an ID psychologist, Erikson was an ego psychologist. Erikson stressed that the development of the ego depended heavily on personal and social aspects. “According to Erikson, the ego develops as it successfully resolves crises that are distinctly social in nature. These involve establishing a sense of trust in others, developing a sense of identity in society, and helping the next generation prepare for the future” (McLeod, S. 1970). His theory focused on personality development through eight distinct stages. He believed that personality progressed in a stacking or pre-determined manner, this is referred to as the epigenetic principle. One must
Erick Erickson developmental theory is one of the most influential theories in human development. His stages of development elaborate on ambiguous developmental period in which he characterizes conflict of Intimacy vs. Isolation in young adult, Generativity vs Stagnation in middle adulthood and Integrity vs. Despair in late adulthood (Schwartz, 2001). Erickson’s developmental stages theory paves the way for in-depth research on social developmental changes that occurred from young adulthood (18-25), middle adulthood (26-39), to late adulthood (40-67). In his developmental research on social relationships, Berndt (2002) found that friendships vary in term of quality, stability, intimacy and number. These changes are link to socioemotional selectivity theory, which explains how across the lifespan, individuals gradually interact with fewer people as they deliberately withdraw from social contact in peripheral relationship, while maintaining or increasing involvement in relationships with
Eric Erickson (1902-1994) was a psychoanalytical theorist who refined the study of personality development across the life stages (School of Arts, Development and Health Education, Massey University, 2012). His psychosocial theory (Newman & Newman, 2007) extended on the work of his mentor, and originating theorist; Sigmund Freud (Berk, 2012). Erickson’s theory divulged that individuals confront both negative and positive social pressures, at each life stage. How they deal with such experiences, and the learning, or lack of, acquired from them, determines how they cope and develop throughout their remaining life stages (Newman & Newman, 2007). Negative experiences not properly managed at any stage, adversely affect individual growth.
Erickson’s psychosocial stages of the life cycle were defined in the interactions between Fisher, Dr. Davenport, his Navy Psychiatrist, his foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tate, and his mom. Erickson’s psychosocial stages of the life cycle proposed that personality develops in sequences. (Hutchinson, 2013) Fisher
The First stage in Erickson’s theory is trust vs. mistrust, this stage occurs during infancy, from birth to one years old. This stage is all about trust, it is the stage where you hopefully begin to trust not only yourself but others as well (Crandell and Crandell p. 36). An infant gains trust in infancy because they can not do anything for themselves, they depend on others to do everything for them therefore in this stage they develop trust in others, their caregivers, that they will do all that they can to take care of their well-being. Developing trust in infancy is crucial because this makes the individual grow up feeling safe and secure in the world. A positive outcome of an infant developing trust is that they grow up feeling safe in the world, a negative outcome would be that the individual grows up in fear of the world. There is no way to develop one hundred percent trust or one hundred percent doubt, Erikson believed that the best way to come out of this stage is with a balanc...
Erik Erikson’s eight Stages of man; politically known as the eight stages of psychosocial development. He promotes social interactions as a motivation to personality development. Erickson studied stages from the beginning of the life cycle to the later stages of life. Erickson was trained under the famous Sigmund Freud. His belief was that it wasn’t only sex that motivated personality development. Social interaction and a growing sense of competence is the key to it all. Because his beliefs differed from the beliefs of Freud, Erikson quickly began to work on his own. Erickson has focused on many different eras of psychological development.
Eric Erickson was a psychologist who studied under and was influenced by Sigmund Freud. Erikson developed the psychosocial theory of personality development which suggests that every individual passes through different stages in life from birth through death. One of the main aspects of his theory is ego identity, the conscious sense of self humans are given at birth and develop through life’s social interactions. Erickson submits that during these stages humans face conflict and there is a predominate issue which may or may not be successfully negotiated. It is the successful completion of each stage where humans learn skills that will assist with the effective completion of future stages. Erickson believed that current thinking
This assignment’s main focus will be centred on Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, which consists of eight stages however only the fifth stage ‘identity versus role confusion’ will be discussed. Aspects such as identity crises, exploration of autonomy whilst developing a sense of self, factors that may contribute to identity formation as well as the successful/unsuccessful resolution of this particular stage will be discussed thoroughly. Erikson’s theory was also expanded by James Marcia, who identified certain identity statuses. The discussion will then progress to the psychosocial development of a case study based on Anna Monroe in connection to the difficulties she faced, such as gender, sexuality, peer pressure,
His belief was that each human developed their own personality through a series of stages and these stages developed due to the social experiences that one experienced through life. According to Erikson, there are eight stages and each stage centers around a conflict that has to be resolved. Under Erikson’s theory, if conflict or crisis is not resolved, then the outcome will be more crisis and struggles with that issue later on in life (Domino & Affonso, 2011).
Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development were complex, but simple. It is something everyone will go through and experiences will always be different. The lack of reinforcement to the positive aspects of his stages can lead to quite a disaster. Surprisingly, previous stages are highly influential to the proceeding stage. The lack of reinforcement to the positive aspects of his psychosocial stages can have a very devastating effect on a person. This is because the effects built up rather than taking the place of one another. The effects are quite horrifying, but with the right environment, experiences and beliefs, everything can go well.
Erik Erikson was influenced by Freud and his concept of the ego. Erikson observed the impact of external factors on personality from not just childhood, but throughout the entire lifetime. He developed eight stages, which are split into different age brackets. As an individual passes through these stages, they must successfully complete the crisis to move forward onto the next one.
Erik Erickson (1902-1994), is a well-known German psychoanalyst that based his theory of psychosocial development on the premise that cognitive and social development occur hand in hand and cannot be separated (Morrison, 2007, p. 125). Erickson also strived to explain personality growth by describing how human beings respond to potential conflicts at specific periods in their lives (Giorgis and Glazer, 2009, p. 171). He described and explained his eight stages of psychological development, in which the first four of the stages relates to early childhood children.
The first of the four theorist discussed in both the text and one of the videos is Erik Erikson. Erickson followed Sigmund Freud and it was Freud whom influenced Erickson to develop Erickson’s “psychological theory”. Erikson, like Freud, felt that personality develops in a series of stages, eight stages to be precise. He believed that each one of these stages included at least one unique psychological crisis. Each of these stages has different needs that parents and caregivers must be aware of beginning with
Erikson’s first stage of development is the Trust versus Mistrust stage that occurs from birth till the first 18 months of life. According to Erickson this is the period in which infants develop a sense of trust or mistrust, depending largely on how well their caregivers meet their needs (Feldman). During this stage of my life I was being taken care of by both Mom and Dad, but primarily by Mom. My mom was a stay at home parent while my dad worked. Both my
The eight stages of Erickson’s psychosocial theory focus on the way that individual personalities adapt and develop over the lifespan. He believed that both maturational and social demands pushed humans through these stages. Each stage has a general age range in which the experiences should occur, along with a central question that the stage is attempting to answer. As we age the duration of these phases becomes longer, partially due to the increasing complexity of the questions attempted to be answered. In addition, the book also notes a virtue or strength associated with each time period in an individual's life that typically are acquired or expanded upon during the stage.