Erick Erickson's Impact on Developmental Psychology

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Recommended: general assuptions of the psychodynamic approach

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

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