Erikson's Development Theory

Erik Erikson: the Life-Span Theorist and His contribution to the psychology field with his developmental theory

Erik Erikson (1902-1994) has made a contribution to the psychology field with his developmental theory. He discusses psychosocial stages, even though he does not talk about psychosexual stages, his ideas were influenced by Freud. Erikson extends on Freudian’s thoughts by focusing on the adaptive and creative characteristics of the ego, and expending the notion of the stages of personality development, which includes the whole life spam. He developed eight psychosocial stages that human encounter throughout their lives. The stages are trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority,

His development thesis is centered on what we know as the epigenetic principle, which proposes that every human being go through eight stages. At each one, people face a crisis that need to be successfully resolved in order to develop the psychological quality central to each of the stages. The eight stages of his theory are something that every psychology student learns about as they explore the history of personality according to psychology. Much like psychoanalyst Freud, Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages. Erikson’s theory marked a shift that describes the impact of social experiences across the whole lifespan instead of simply focusing on childhood

He worked with what he knew, with what he saw, and what was ready to hand. Inevitably, as result, many doubt that any of his ideas still apply. So if Erik Erikson seems irrelevant today, it is because the world has changed, even if human nature has not. While Freud’s theories had focused on psychosexual aspect of development, Erikson’s addition of other influences helped to broaden and expend Psychoanalytic theory. He also contributed to our understanding of personality as is developed and shaped over the course of lifespan. His observations of children also helped set the stage for further research. To squeeze a lifetime into a few pages, we had to ignore countless details. Although much is missing, the result is a clear picture of an entire lifespan. Psychosocial dilemmas are major events in many lives. Knowing about them may allow you to anticipate typical trouble spots in your own