Erikson: Psychosocial Stages of Development

• Erik Erikson - June 15, 1902 in Southern Germany
• At age 18, Erikson left home to pursue the life of a wandering artist and to search for self identity
• He met Anna Freud in Vienna
• Anna Freud - psychoanalyzed Erikson
• May 12, 1994 - Erikson died
• Erikson's Post-Freudian Theory - ego is the center of personality and is responsible for a unified sense of self
• Ego

  • Body Ego - one's awareness and acceptance of their physical self
  • Ego Ideal - a sense of an ideal self, motivating individuals to achieve standards and feel satisfaction
  • Ego Identity - integration of self-concepts across various social roles, particularly emphasizes during adolescence as individuals shape their identity in response to social expectations.
• Society's Influence - ego develops within a given society and is influenced by child-rearing practices and other cultural customs

  • Pseudospecies - fictional notion that they are superior to other cultures
• Epigenetic Principle - ego grows according to a genetically established rate and in a fixed sequence.

  • borrowed term from embryology
• Stages of Psychosocial Development

  • Each of the 8 stages is marked by the conflict between the syntonic and dystonic element, which produces a basic strength or ego quality
  • Syntonic - harmonious
  • Dystonic - disruptive
• Stages of Psychosocial Development

  • Ritualization - are playful yet culturally patterned ways of doing or experiencing something in the daily interplay of individuals.
• Stages of Psychosocial Development

  • Identity Crisis - a turning point, which may produce either adaptive or maladaptive adjustment