Erik Erickson: My Personality Theory

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My Personality Theory Paper Erik Erickson’s eight stages of psychosocial development is argumentatively one of the best theories to explain how human beings should healthily develop from infancy to late adulthood. Every stage of the theory must be successfully completed for optimal human personality growth. Stages that are not successful completed may result in reoccurring problems throughout one’s lifespan. Every stage is broken down by a psychosocial crisis, each with a conflicting matter that must be resolved. If the person fails to resolve this conflict, they will carry the negative trait into every remaining stage of life. Furthermore, if the person successfully resolves the conflict, they will carry the positive trait into every remaining …show more content…

Despair.” During this stage the person correlates wisdom with life experiences and the sense of life accomplishments. Those who fail this stage results in a sense of despair the feeling of an unfulfilled life. Those who successfully master this stage will gain the ego skill of “Wisdom.” There are many personality developmental theories, but I think Erik Erickson’s theory of psychosocial development identifies the closest with my emotional development. During the first stage of the theory, my mother was very nurturing and tended to my every need as I developed. As a result of her good parenting I developed a strong sense of hope and trust towards other human beings, but not to the point of where I become over trusting of people. I think my overall development in this stage was pretty balanced towards both sides of the ladder. During this stage both of my parents did a splendid job of guiding me on life’s path of knowing between right and wrong. Again, I think I came out of this stage with a balanced sense of both “Autonomy vs Shame & …show more content…

Everyone is unique and not every person needs to successfully master each level to gain a previous ego skill in a future stage of life. Erik Erikson’s theory is derived from primarily an environmental influence. There is data or analysis conducted that offers insight to biological factors that could alter the stages during psychosocial development. While the environment has a strong influence over human being’s development, I believe our genetic makeup can sometimes be enough to overcome previously failed stages. An example would be a person who was raised in a poor environment, only to rise above the pain and suffering to become successful in all stages of life. I also like to think of myself as a good candidate for somebody that failed earlier stages of psychosocial development, only to gain previously lost ego skills in future stages of

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