ERIC ERICSON

(born June 15, 1902, Frankfurt am Main, Ger. - died May 12, 1994, Harwich, Mass., U.S.) German-U.S. psychoanalyst.
Trained in Vienna by Anna Freud, in 1933 he immigrated to the U.S., where he practiced child psychoanalysis in Boston
and joined the Harvard Medical School faculty. In 1936 he moved to Yale University, and in 1938 he began his first studies
of cultural influences on psychological development, working with Sioux Indian children and later with the Yurok Indians.
He later taught at the University of California at Berkeley but left in 1950, in the era of McCarthyism, after refusing to sign
a loyalty oath vowing support of the Constitution of the U.S. Personality development, in Erikson's view, takes place
through a series of identity crises that must be overcome and internalized in preparation for the next developmental stage;
he posited eight such stages. His other concerns included social psychology and the interactions of psychology with history,
politics, and culture. His works include Childhood and Society (1950), Young Man Luther (1958), Gandhi's Truth (1969),
and Life History and the Historical Moment (1975).

Erik Homburger Erikson (1902-1994) was a German-born American psychoanalyst and educator whose studies have
perhaps contributed most to the understanding of the young.

On June 15, 1902, Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, of Danish parents. His widowed mother
subsequently married the pediatrician Theodore Homburger. Erikson first studied painting in Germany and Italy. Later, he
joined Peter Blos and Dorothy Burlingham, Anna Freud's colleague, in the development of a small children's school in
Vienna. This led to his training analysis by Anna Freud and immersion in theoretical seminars and in clinical work. Having
also acquired a Montessori diploma, he graduated from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933.

In 1930, he had married Canadian-born Joan Mowat Serson, who was vitally interested in education, as well as the arts
and crafts, and deeply shared his interest in writing. The development of their three children, Kai, Jon, and Sue, as well as
Erikson's work in Anna Freud's school, may have contributed much to his eventual thinking about the "epigenetic schema"
of development and the vocabulary of health, in which he described the contributions of successive psychosexual stages to
ego strengths, such as trust and autonomy, initiative and industry, and identity and intimacy.

Following Hitler's accession to power, the Eriksons went to the United States, where he began private practice and a
sequence of research appointments at Harvard Medical School (1934-1935), Yale School of Medicine (1936-1939),
University of California at Berkeley (1939-1951), and Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Mass. (1951-1960); he was
visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (1951-1960). One of his later appointments was as
professor of human development and lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard University. At intervals he took time off for work
abroad, such as travel to India in connection with his intensive study of Gandhi.

Study of Youth

Always free from the provincialism typical of thinkers with a more static and limited background, Erikson's thinking pushed
toward an understanding of the ways in which the drives dominant in successive psychoanalytically defined life stages are
shaped by interaction with the persistent needs and solutions typical of a given culture. These formulations were supported
by field observations made with the collaboration of anthropologists, and also by observations of children's play.

Erikson's extension of the classical Freudian psychoanalytic concept of development was published in Childhood and
Society (1950). The book startled some orthodox Freudians, who viewed development as dominated solely by the
sequential emergence of successively potent drives modified or exaggerated primarily by their intimate - depriving,
indulging, or punishing - interactions with the parents. Erikson's broader concept of dynamics of inner-outer interactions
provided inspiration, challenge, and insight to the spectrum of American social sciences concerned with child development.

Erikson's concern at Austen Riggs Center was focused on the troubled years of late adolescence and early adulthood. He
emphasized the universal process of resolution of identity conflicts during this developmental phase in a profound study of
the youthful Martin Luther, Young Man Luther (1958); in a monograph, Identity and the Life Cycle (1959); and in a volume
which he edited, Youth: Change and Challenge (1963). His Harvard teaching and response to students' concerns with
values led to two collections of essays: Insight and Responsibility (1964) and Identity, Youth and Crisis (1967). The latter
is a prophetic reformulation of the relation of the concepts of ego and self, and recognition of issues of nobility and
cowardice, love and hate, and greatness and pettiness, which he sees as transcending the traditional normative issues of
"adjustment to society." His contribution to understanding of the problem of identity in youth at times when personal
change intersects with historical change has led scores of scholars to research exploring this area. In 1969 Erikson
published Gandhi's Truth. This book focuses on the evolution of a passionate commitment in maturity to a humane goal
and on the inner dynamic precursors of Gandhi's nonviolent strategy to reach this goal.


Erikson's Personality

The sources of Erikson's fresh, subtle, and multimodal awareness are many: His artist's temperament and perceptiveness
contribute both to sensory richness and to sensitivity to nuances of personality and behavior. His deeply satisfying family
life and wide-ranging friendships, with people such as Lawrence K. Frank, Margaret Mead, A. L. Kroeber, and Gardner
Murphy, support a sense of health as a potential for the development of human beings struggling with conflicts
exacerbated by the pressures of a given life stage. His freedom from premature commitment to an academic discipline
with rigid canons of concept formation released him for original formulations as well as new adaptations and implications of
classical psychoanalysis. Erikson's shrewd "the Emperor has no clothes" type of realism and uninhibited daring in probing
new areas of experience seem to draw on a never-suppressed child's penetrating curiosity.

His love of life in nature and in people of all ages and many different cultures underlies the predominantly warm and vital
quality of his thinking and writing. This has evoked the resonance of students of many disciplines whom he has influenced
more than any analyst since Freud.

Freud lived and worked at a time when the mentally ill were beginning to be understood and universal inner conflict
needed to be understood more deeply. Erikson was maturing in a period when the fate of the Western world was
threatened by violence and denigration of values - a time when health, "virtue," and strength and their origins needed to
be asserted and understood. His later books anticipated the demands of youthful protesters who repudiated the falseness
of politics and the materialism of the economic world and who called for sincerity, peace, love, and humane values.

Erikson died in 1994; however, his words live on - even those not familiar with his work may share his passion in
language. Along with his numerous theories and plethora of information, Erikson also left educators the sound advice, "Do
not mistake a child for his symptom."

Further Reading

Richard I. Evans published Dialogue with Erik Erikson (1967). A fine recent study is Robert Coles, Erik H. Erikson: The
Growth of His Work (1970). Henry W. Maier, Three Theories of Child Development: The Contributions of Erik H. Erikson,
Jean Piaget, and Robert R. Sears, and Their Applications (1965; rev. ed. 1969), and Nol A. Kinsella, Toward a Theory of
Personality Development: A Study of the Works of Erik H. Erikson (1966), contain biographical material as well as
discussion of Erikson's theories. Jonas Langer, Theories of Development (1969), contains many references to Erikson.


Erikson, Erik, 1902-94, American psychoanalyst, b. Germany. As a young man he traveled throughout Europe. He became
a teacher in a Vienna private school and trained as a psychoanalyst (1927-33) under Anna Freud, specializing in child
psychology. After emigrating to the United States in 1933, Erikson taught at Harvard (1933-36; 1960-70) and engaged in
a variety of clinical work, widening the scope of psychoanalytic theory to take greater account of social, cultural, and other
environmental factors. In his most influential work, Childhood and Society (1950), he divided the human life cycle into
eight psychosocial stages of development. His psychohistorical studies, Young Man Luther (1958) and Gandhi's Truth
(1969; Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award), explore the convergence of personal development and social history. His later
works deal with ethical concerns in the modern world.


1902-1994


Erik Homburger Erikson, American psychoanalyst, was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt-am-Main, and died on May 12,
1994, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Erikson was the son of a Danish mother and unknown father. His step-father was a German pediatrician in Karlsruhe, and
after Erikson left home his mother and step-father, both Jewish, moved to Palestine. In Vienna, Anna Freud became
Erikson's analyst in 1927, and he graduated as a child analyst from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933. Artistically
inclined, Erikson said that he was first attracted to Freud's ideas by the magnificence of his German prose.

He entered Freud's circle in the summer of 1927, when he was working as a painter of children's portraits without any firm
professional goals. An old school friend was at that time the director of a small progressive school in Vienna run by
Dorothy Burlingham and Eva Rosenfeld, both close friends of Anna Freud.

Most of the children at the school were in psychoanalytic treatment, and a number of the parents were undergoing
analysis. Erikson was hired to paint the portraits of the four Burlingham children. After a brief period as a tutor, Erikson
was asked whether he would consider becoming a child analyst-a profession he had not heard of before.

By the end of 1933 Erikson had settled in Boston, Massachusetts. He worked in private practice as a child analyst, the first
male in that field. He also was associated with the Harvard Psychological Clinic under Henry A. Murray, and did research at
Yale. In 1939 Erikson became an American citizen, changing his name from his step-father's Homburger to the self-created
Erikson. Later he moved to Berkeley, California where he became one of the founders of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic
Society. After a 1951 loyalty oath controversy at the height of the McCarthy period, Erikson resigned from the University of
California and moved to the Austin Riggs Center in western Massachusetts. In 1960 he accepted a prestigious university
professorship at Harvard College.

Always uncomfortable in academic life, since he himself was without any formal training aside from being an analyst,
Erikson retired from Harvard in the early 1970s to return to California where he worked at the Mt. Zion Department of
Psychiatry in San Francisco. In 1987 he returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts. where an Erikson Center was established
under Harvard's auspices. Erikson's final days were spent at a nursing home at Harwich on Cape Cod, near Cotuit where he
and his wife Joan had long had a summer home.

Erikson's Childhood and Society first came out in 1950, and was reprinted more than any of his other books. Young Man
Luther (1958) was a study in psychoanalysis and history, as Erikson treated Luther as an innovative psychologist whose
Christian teachings complemented those of classical analysis. While Identity and the Life Cycle (1959) was a collection of
his papers on ego psychology. Insight and Responsibility (1964) was a set of papers on the ethical implications of
psychoanalytic insight. Gandhi's Truth (1969), a prize-winning book, sought the origins of militant non-violence in Gandhi's
life. Erikson also gave the 1973 Jefferson Lectures in the Humanities, which appeared as Dimensions of a New Identity
(1974). Life History and the Historical Moment (1975) was another collection of essays, and so was A Way of Looking at
Things (1987).

Erikson used his concept of ego identity in order to move psychoanalytic theory away from Feud's libido approach;
Erickson saw society as a constructive source of ego strength. Erikson also developed the notion of psychohistory as part
of his effort to bring psychoanalysis into the modern social sciences.



Child psychoanalyst Erik Homburger Erikson focused his research on the effects of society and culture on individual
psychological development; he also developed the eight-stage model of human development. Erikson was born in
Frankfurt, Germany, of Danish parents who had separated before his birth. His surname for the first four decades of his
life, Homburger, was that of his stepfather, a physician. Upon becoming a U.S. citizen in 1939 he adopted the surname
Erikson.

Career

Although Erikson graduated from a classical gymnasium where he studied Latin, Greek, German literature, and history, he
was not a good student. For the next seven years following his graduation, he was a wandering artist through Europe,
sketching, doing woodcuts and etchings, and intermittently studying art. In 1927, at age 25, he received an invitation from
a childhood friend in Vienna to teach in a small progressive school for English and American children. While teaching art
and history, he became acquainted with the Freud family and was judged an excellent candidate for psychoanalytic
training. As Robert Coles observed, at that time candidates did not apply, but were chosen.

He graduated with a diploma from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1933, where he was viewed as a gifted student. He
also was one of two men to graduate from the Montessori teachers association. Upon graduation, he and his wife and
young son fled from the encroaching Nazi domination to the United States.

Although Erikson had no formal degree, he became the first child analyst in Boston and a research associate at Harvard
Medical School. From 1936 through the 1940s, he served as a research associate at Yale, then at the University of
California, finally receiving a professional appointment at the latter institution. During this period, in addition to his analytic
work with children, he undertook the in-depth observational study of children in two American Indian tribes, the Sioux of
South Dakota and the Yuron of northern California. These studies marked the beginning of his integration of the analytic
clinical perspective with the social and economic events that influence child development.

Shortly after Erikson received a professorial appointment at the University of California, the signing of a loyalty oath
became a contractual requirement for faculty. Refusing to sign the oath, Erikson resigned in June 1950. Noting that his
field, psychoanalysis, included the study of hysteria, he stated he could not participate in this inadequate response to
public hysteria. Erikson then returned to the analysis of troubled children by accepting a position at the Austen Riggs
Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In 1960 he was appointed professor at Harvard University, where he remained until
his retirement in the early 1970s.

Contribution

Although trained as a psychoanalyst, Erikson's scholarship, which included fourteen books, transcended the discipline in his
interweaving of culture, history, and the individual across a variety of topics. Specifically, he applied psychoanalysis in
addressing anthropological, religious, and historical questions in addition to developing a comprehensive life span model of
psychological development.

In his work, Erikson went beyond the Freudian focus on dysfunctional behavior to pursue the ways that the normal self is
able to function successfully. His unique contribution to the applications of psychoanalysis, his inclusion of the effects of
society and culture on individual psychological development, led to the designation of his perspective as psychosocial. Early
examples are the study of the American Indian children, which combined anthropological observation and clinical analysis
with tribal history and economic circumstances.

Erikson also applied psychoanalysis to develop richly detailed biographical histories of leaders who made a difference in
society. Included are his chapter on Maxim Gorky, his lectures on Thomas Jefferson, and his books on Martin Luther
(Young Man Luther:A Study in Psychoanalysis and History, 1962) and Mahatma Gandhi. The latter work, Gandhi's Truth:
On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969), received both the 1970 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In these
works, Erikson applied clinical analysis to develop an understanding of the ways that leaders faced with untenable
situations rose above them to forge new identities for themselves and other citizens.

In education and psychology, Erikson is best known for his eight-stage model of the human life cycle, developed with the
assistance of his wife, Joan. This model identifies particular goals, challenges, and concerns at each stage of life. They are
the following: (1) Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust (infancy); (2) Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt (early childhood);
(3) Initiative versus Guilt (play age); (4) Industry versus Inferiority (school age); (5) Identity versus Role Confusion
(adolescence); (6) Intimacy versus Isolation (young adulthood); (7) Generativity versus Stagnation (adulthood); (8) Ego
Identity versus Despair (later adulthood). Further, the stages are interdependent in that unresolved conflicts at one stage
influence development at later stages, as in the development of either a loving trusting relationship with a caregiver in
infancy or mistrust of others.

Unlike Freud, who focused on early childhood, Erikson emphasized adolescence and adulthood. Erikson introduced the term
identity and identity crisis to explain the psychological and social complexities faced by young people in attempting to find
their place in a specific town, nation, and time. Adolescent development, in other words, is a complex answer to the
question, "Who am I?" and requires organization of the individual's drives, abilities, beliefs, and history into a view of
oneself. This focus reflects Erikson's own youthful wanderings before finding his place as a teacher, analyst, and writer.

In the 1960s Erikson focused on the seventh or "generative" stage of adulthood. In this stage, adults are obligated to care
for the next generation, either one's own children or a broader group, through personal deeds and words. In the case of
Gandhi, his contribution to the next generation was his militant nonviolence as a means to address social injustice. In
addition Erikson described the final stage, late adulthood, as an active period that involves acceptance of self and the
development of wisdom.

A third focus in Erikson's writing, ethical and moral responsibility, is reflected most prominently in Insight and
Responsibility (1964). In this work, he included a set of eight virtues that correspond with his eight life stages (hope, will,
purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom). He also introduced the term pseudospeciation to describe the
destructive mechanism that leads to human conflict, aggression, and war. Specifically, pseudospeciation refers to the
"arrogant placing of one's nation, race, culture, and (or) society ahead of others; the failure to recognize that all of
humanity was of one species" (Friedman, p. 357). Groups of individuals, in other words, are assigned membership in a
not-quite human or pseudo-species. With this concept, as in his other writings, Erikson spoke to human psychological
issues within the broader context of history and culture.







North America
Following Eriksons graduation from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933, the Nazis had just come to power in
Germany, and he emigrated with his wife, first to Denmark and then to the United States, where he became the first child
psychoanalyst in Boston. Erikson held positions at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Judge Baker Guidance Center, and
at Harvards Medical School and Psychological Clinic, establishing a solid reputation as an outstanding clinician.

In 1936, Erikson accepted a position at Yale University, where he worked at the Institute of Human Relations and taught at
the Medical School. After spending a year observing children on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, he joined the faculty
of the University of California at Berkeley, where he was affiliated with the Institute of Child Welfare, and opened a private
practice as well. While in California, Erikson also studied children of the Yurok Native American tribe.

After publishing the book for which Erikson is best known, Childhood and Society, in 1950, he left the University of
California when professors there were asked to sign loyalty oaths.[2] He spent ten years working and teaching at the
Austen Riggs Center, a prominent psychiatric treatment facility in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he worked with
emotionally troubled young people.

In the 1960s, Erikson returned to Harvard as a professor of human development and remained at the university until his
retirement in 1970. In 1973 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Erikson for the Jefferson Lecture, the
U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. Erikson's lecture was titled "Dimensions of a
New Identity".[3][4][5]

Theories of development and the ego
Erikson's greatest innovation was to postulate not five stages of development, as Sigmund Freud had done with his
psychosexual stages, but eight, and then later added a ninth stage in his book "The Life Cycle Completed." Erik Erikson
believed that every human being goes through a certain number of stages to reach his or her full development, theorizing
eight stages that a human being goes through from birth to death.[6][7] Erikson elaborated Freud's genital stage into
adolescence, and added three stages of adulthood. His widow Joan Serson Erikson elaborated on his model before her
death, adding a ninth stage (old age) to it, taking into consideration the increasing life expectancy in Western cultures.
Erikson is also credited with being one of the originators of Ego psychology, which stressed the role of the ego as being
more than a servant of the id. According to Erikson, the environment in which a child lived was crucial to providing growth,
adjustment, a source of self awareness and identity. Erikson won a Pulitzer Prize and a U.S. National Book Award for his
1969 book Gandhi's Truth, which focused more on his theory as applied to later phases in the life cycle.

Erikson's theory of personality
Main article: Erikson's stages of psychosocial development
Erikson was a Neo-Freudian. He has been described as an "ego psychologist" studying the stages of development,
spanning the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development are marked by a conflict, for which
successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome, for example, trust vs. mistrust, and by an important event that
this conflict resolves itself around, for example, the meaning of one's life.

Favorable outcomes of each stage are sometimes known as "virtues", a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it
is applied to medicines, meaning "potencies." Erikson's research suggests that each individual must learn how to hold both
extremes of each specific life-stage challenge in tension with one another, not rejecting one end of the tension or the
other. Only when both extremes in a life-stage challenge are understood and accepted as both required and useful, can the
optimal virtue for that stage surface. Thus, 'trust' and 'mis-trust' must both be understood and accepted, in order for
realistic 'hope' to emerge as a viable solution at the first stage. Similarly, 'integrity' and 'despair' must both be understood
and embraced, in order for actionable 'wisdom' to emerge as a viable solution at the last stage.

The Erikson life-stage virtues, in the order of the stages in which they may be acquired, are:

1.Hope - Basic Trust vs. Mistrust - Infant stage / 0-1 year. Does the child believe its caregivers to be reliable?
2.Will - Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt - Toddler stage / 1-3 years. Child needs to learn to explore the world. Bad if the
parent is too smothering or completely neglectful.
3.Purpose - Initiative vs. Guilt - Preschool / 3-6 years - Does the child have the ability to or do things on their own, such
as dress him or herself? If "guilty" about making his or her own choices, the child will not function well. Erikson has a
positive outlook on this stage, saying that most guilt is quickly compensated by a sense of accomplishment.
4.Competence - Industry vs. Inferiority - School-age / 6-11. Child comparing self worth to others (such as in a classroom
environment). Child can recognize major disparities in personal abilities relative to other children. Erikson places some
emphasis on the teacher, who should ensure that children do not feel inferior.
5.Fidelity - Identity vs. Role Confusion - Adolescent / 12 years till 20. Questioning of self. Who am I, how do I fit in? Where
am I going in life? Erikson believes that if the parents allow the child to explore, they will conclude their own identity.
However, if the parents continually push him/her to conform to their views, the teen will face identity confusion.
6.Intimacy vs. isolation - This is the first and very crucial stage of development. This development usually happens during
young adulthood, which is between the ages of 20 to 24. Dating, marriage, family and friendships are important during the
stage in their life. By successfully forming loving relationships with other people, individuals are able to experience love
and intimacy. Those who fail to form lasting relationships may feel isolated and alone.
7.Generativity vs. stagnation is the second stage of adulthood and happens between the ages of 25-64. During this time,
people are normally settled in their life and know what is important to them. A person is either making progress in their
career or treading lightly in their career and unsure about if this is what they want to do for the rest of their working lives.
Also during this time, a person is enjoying raising their children and participating in activities that gives them a sense on
purpose. If a person is not comfortable with the way their life is progressing; they're usually regretful about the decisions
and feel a sense of uselessness.
8.Ego integrity vs. despair. This stage affects the age group of 65 and on. During this time you have reached the last
chapter in your life and retirement is approaching or has already taken place. Many people have achieved what was
important to them look back on their lives and feel great accomplishment and a sense of integrity. The ones who had a
difficult time during middle adulthood may look back and feel a sense of despair.

On ego identity versus Role Confusion, ego identity enables each person to have a sense of individuality, or as Erikson
would say, "Ego identity, then, in its subjective aspect, is the awareness of the fact that there is a self-sameness and
continuity to the ego's synthesizing methods and a continuity of one's meaning for others" (1963). Role Confusion,
however, is, according to Barbara Engler in her book Personality Theories (2006), "The inability to conceive of oneself as a
productive member of one's own society" (158)[citation needed]. This inability to conceive of oneself as a productive
member is a great danger; can occur during adolescence when looking for an occupation.





































O Erik Erikson was born June 15, 1902.
O He died May 12, 1994.
Childhood:
Erik Erikson was born June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany. His father, a Danish man, abandoned the family before he was
born. His young, Jewish mother later married a physician, Dr. Theodor Homberger.
His interest in identity developed early on in life based upon his own experiences in school. At his temple school, the other
children teased him for being Nordic because he was tall, blonde and blue-eyed. At grammar school, he was rejected
because of his Jewish background.
Career:
After spending some time traveling throughout Europe, Erik Erikson studied psychoanalysis from Anna Freud and earned a
certificate from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Erikson moved to the United States in 1933 and was offered a teaching
position at Harvard Medical School. In addition to this, he also had a private practice in child psychoanalysis. Later, he held
teaching positions at University of California at Berkeley, Yale, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, Austen Riggs Center,
and Center for Advanced Studies of the Behavioral Sciences.
He published a number of books on his theories and research, including Childhood and Society and The Life Cycle
Completed. His book Gandhi's Truth was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and a national Book Award.
Contributions to Psychology:
Erik Erikson spent time studying the cultural life of the Sioux of South Dakota and the Yurok of northern California. He
utilized the knowledge he gained of cultural, environmental and social influences to further develop his psychoanalytic
theory.
While Freuds theory had focused on the psychosexual aspects of development, Eriksons addition of other influences
helped to broaden and expand psychoanalytic theory. He also contributed to our understanding of personality as it is
developed and shaped over the course of the lifespan.
His son, Kai T. Erikson, is a noted American sociologist.

What is Psychosocial Development?
Erik Eriksons theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality in psychology. Much like
Sigmund Freud, Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages. Unlike Freuds theory of psychosexual
stages, Eriksons theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan.
One of the main elements of Eriksons psychosocial stage theory is the development of ego identity.
1
Ego identity is the
conscious sense of self that we develop through social interaction. According to Erikson, our ego identity is constantly
changing due to new experience and information we acquire in our daily interactions with others. In addition to ego
identity, Erikson also believed that a sense of competence also motivates behaviors and actions. Each stage in Eriksons
theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of
mastery, which he sometimes referred to as ego strength or ego quality.
2
If the stage is managed poorly, the person
will emerge with a sense of inadequacy.
In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in development. In Eriksons
view, these conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During
these times, the potential for personal growth is high, but so is the potential for failure.
Psychosocial Stage - Trust vs. Mistrust
O The first stage of Eriksons theory of psychosocial development occurs between birth and one year of age and is the
most fundamental stage in life.
O Because an infant is utterly dependent, the development of trust is based on the dependability and quality of the childs
caregivers.
O If a child successfully develops trust, he or she will feel safe and secure in the world. Caregivers who are inconsistent,
emotionally unavailable, or rejecting contribute to feelings of mistrust in the children they care for. Failure to develop
trust will result in fear and a belief that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable.
Psychosocial Stage - Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
O The second stage of Erikson's theory of psychosocial development takes place during early childhood and is focused on
children developing a greater sense of personal control.
O Like Freud, Erikson believed that toilet training was a vital part of this process. However, Erikson's reasoning was quite
different then that of Freud's. Erikson believe that learning to control ones body functions leads to a feeling of control
and a sense of independence.
O Other important events include gaining more control over food choices, toy preferences, and clothing selection.
O Children who successfully complete this stage feel secure and confident, while those who do not are left with a sense of
inadequacy and self-doubt.

Psychosocial Stage 3 - Initiative vs. Guilt
O During the preschool years, children begin to assert their power and control over the world through directing play and
other social interaction.
O Children who are successful at this stage feel capable and able to lead others. Those who fail to acquire these skills are
left with a sense of guilt, self-doubt and lack of initiative.
Psychosocial Stage - Industry vs. Inferiority
O This stage covers the early school years from approximately age 5 to 11.
O Through social interactions, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their accomplishments and abilities.
O Children who are encouraged and commended by parents and teachers develop a feeling of competence and belief in
their skills. Those who receive little or no encouragement from parents, teachers, or peers will doubt their ability to be
successful.
Psychosocial Stage 5 - Identity vs. Confusion
O During adolescence, children are exploring their independence and developing a sense of self.
O Those who receive proper encouragement and reinforcement through personal exploration will emerge from this stage
with a strong sense of self and a feeling of independence and control. Those who remain unsure of their beliefs and
desires will insecure and confused about themselves and the future.

Psychosocial Stage 6 - Intimacy vs. Isolation
O This stage covers the period of early adulthood when people are exploring personal relationships.
O Erikson believed it was vital that people develop close, committed relationships with other people. Those who are
successful at this step will develop relationships that are committed and secure.
O Remember that each step builds on skills learned in previous steps. Erikson believed that a strong sense of personal
identity was important to developing intimate relationships. Studies have demonstrated that those with a poor sense of
self tend to have less committed relationships and are more likely to suffer emotional isolation, loneliness, and
depression.


Psychosocial Stage 7 - Generativity vs. Stagnation
O During adulthood, we continue to build our lives, focusing on our career and family.
O Those who are successful during this phase will feel that they are contributing to the world by being active in their home
and community. Those who fail to attain this skill will feel unproductive and uninvolved in the world.
Psychosocial Stage 8 - Integrity vs. Despair
O This phase occurs during old age and is focused on reflecting back on life.
O Those who are unsuccessful during this phase will feel that their life has been wasted and will experience many regrets.
The individual will be left with feelings of bitterness and despair.
O Those who feel proud of their accomplishments will feel a sense of integrity. Successfully completing this phase means
looking back with few regrets and a general feeling of satisfaction. These individuals will attain wisdom, even when
confronting death.




















Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development



Erik Erikson described development that occurs throughout the lifespan. Learn more in this chart summarizing Erikson's
stages of psychosocial development.


Stage Basic Conflict Important
Events
Outcome
Infancy (birth to
8 months
Trust vs.
Mistrust
Feeding Children develop a sense of trust when caregivers provide reliabilty,
care, and affection. A lack of this will lead to mistrust.
Early Childhood
( to 3 years
Autonomy vs.
Shame and
Doubt
Toilet Training Children need to develop a sense of personal control over physical
skills and a sense of independence. Success leads to feelings of
autonomy, failure results in feelings of shame and doubt.
Preschool (3 to
5 years
Initiative vs.
Guilt
Exploration Children need to begin asserting control and power over the
environment. Success in this stage leads to a sense of purpose.
Children who try to exert too much power experience disapproval,
resulting in a sense of guilt.
School Age (6 to
years
Industry vs.
Inferiority
School Children need to cope with new social and academic demands.
Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in
feelings of inferiority.
Adolescence (
to 8 years
Identity vs. Role
Confusion
Social
Relationships
Teens need to develop a sense of self and personal identity.
Success leads to an ability to stay true to yourself, while failure
leads to role confusion and a weak sense of self.
ound
Adulthood (
to years
Intimacy vs.
Isolation
Relationships Young adults need to form intimate, loving relationships with other
people. Success leads to strong relationships, while failure results
in loneliness and isolation.
Middle
Adulthood (
to 65 years
Generativity vs.
Stagnation
Work and
Parenthood
Adults need to create or nurture things that will outlast them, often
by having children or creating a positive change that benefits other
people. Success leads to feelings of usefulness and
accomplishment, while failure results in shallow involvement in the
world.
Maturity(65 to
death
Ego Integrity
vs. Despair
Reflection on
Life
Older adults need to look back on life and feel a sense of
fulfillment. Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while
failure results in regret, bitterness, and despair.











The theory of psychosocial development created by Erik Erikson is perhaps one of the best known personality theories. The
theory differs from many others in that it addresses development across the entire lifespan, from birth through death.
At each stage, the individual deals with a conflict that serves as a turning point in development. When the conflict is
resolved successfully, the person is able to develop the psychosocial quality associated with that particular stage of
development.
Learn more about each of the psychosocial stages, including the conflict confronted at each stage and the major events
that occur during each point of development.
. Stage : Trust Versus Mistrust

Trust versus mistrust is the earliest psychosocial stage that occurs during the first year or so of a child's life. During this
critical phase of development, an infant is utterly dependent upon his or her caregivers. When parents or caregivers
respond a child's needs in a consistent and caring manner, the child then learns to trust the world and people around him.
Learn more about the trust versus mistrust stage.
. Stage : Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt

The second psychosocial stage involves the conflict between autonomy and shame or doubt. As the child enters the toddler
years, gaining a greater sense of personal control becomes increasingly important. Tasks such as learning how to use the
toilet, selecting foods and choosing toys are ways that children gain a greater sense of independence. Learn more about
the autonomy versus shame and doubt stage.
3. Stage 3: Initiative Versus Guilt

The third psychosocial stage occurs between the ages of about three and five and is centered on developing a sense of
self-initiative. Children who are allowed and encouraged to engage in self-directed play emerge with a sense of strong
initiative, while those who are discouraged from these activities may begin to feel a sense of guilt over their self-initiated
activities. Learn more about the initiative versus guilt stage.
. Stage : Industry Versus Inferiority

During middle childhood between the ages of about six and eleven, children enter the psychosocial stage known as
industry versus inferiority. As children engage in social interaction with friends and academic activities at school, they
begin to develop a sense of pride and accomplishment in their work and abilities. Children who are praised and encouraged
develop a sense of competence, while those who are discouraged are left with a sense of inferiority. Learn more about the
industry versus inferiority stage.
5. Stage 5: Identity Versus Confusion

In the fifth psychosocial stage, the formation of a personal identity becomes critical. During adolescence, teens explore
different behaviors, roles and identities. Erikson believed that this stage was particularly critical and that forging a strong
identity serves as a basis for finding future direction in life. Those who find a sense of identity feel secure, independent and
ready to face the future, while those who remain confused may feel lost, insecure and unsure of their place in the world.
Learn more about the identity versus confusion stage.
6. Stage 6: Intimacy Versus Isolation

The sixth psychosocial stage is centered on forming intimate, loving relationships with other people. Dating, marriage,
family and friendships are important during the intimacy versus isolation stage, which lasts from approximately age 19 to
40. By successfully forming loving relationships with other people, individuals are able to experience love and enjoy
intimacy. Those who fail to form lasting relationships may feel isolated and alone. Learn more about the intimacy versus
isolation stage.
7. Stage 7: Generativity Versus Stagnation

Once adults enter the stage that occurs during middle adulthood, the psychosocial conflict becomes centered on the need
to create or nurture things that will outlast the individual. Raising a family, working and contributing to the community are
all ways that people develop a sense of purpose. Those who fail to find ways to contribute may feel disconnected and
useless. Learn more about the generativity versus stagnation stage.
8. Stage 8: Integrity Versus Despair

The final psychosocial stage begins around the age of 65 and lasts until death. During this period of time, the individual
look back on his or her life. The major question during this stage is, "Did I live a meaningful life?" Those who have will feel
a sense of peace, wisdom and fulfillment, even when facing death. For those who look back on life with bitterness and
regret, feelings of despair may result. Learn more about the integrity versus despair stage.

Select Publications by Erik Erickson:
O Erikson, E.H. (1950). Childhood and Society. New York: Norton.
O Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.
O Erikson, E.H. (1975). Life History and the Historical Moment. New York: Norton.
O Erikson, E.H. (1996). Dialogue With Erik Erikson. Richard I. Evans (Ed.), Jason Aronson.
Biographies of Erik Erickson:
O Friedman, L. J. (1999). Identity's Architect; A Biography of Erik H. Erikson. Scribner Book Co.
O Coles, R. (1970). Erik H. Erikson: The Growth of His Work. Boston: Little, Brown.