ERIK ERIKSON & DEVELOPMENT
PSYCHOLOGY
DENGAIL T. HINES
APRIL 24, 2014
HOW WAS ERIKSON
“DEVELOPED”?
 Born: June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt,
Germany
 Died: May 12, 1994 in Cape Cod,
Massachussetts
 Erikson’s mother, Karla
Abrahamsen, came from a Jewish
family in Copenhagen
 German-born American
developmental psychologist,
psychoanalyst
 Known for his theory of
psychosocial development
 Coined the term “identity crisis”
ME, MYSELF, & I!
 At temple school, Erikson was being teased for
being Nordic for being tall, blonde, & blue-eyed
being raised in the Jewish religion
 Attended Das Humanistich Gymnasium which his
main interests were art, history, & languages, but
lacked in school & graduated w/o academic
instincts
 After graduation, Erikson attended art school in
Munich
ME, MYSELF & I! (CONT’D)
 At the age of 25, his friend Peter
Blos invited him to Vienna to tutor
art at the Birmingham-Rosenfield
School whose affluent parents were
undergoing psychoanalysis by Anna
Freud
 Specialized in child analysis &
underwent training analysis w/
Freud
 1930: Married Joan Mowat Serson &
converted to Christianity
 1933: Studied the Montessori
Method of education & received a
Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute
diploma
ME, MYSELF, & I! (CONT’D)
 1933: Moved to the United States, becoming the first child psychoanalyst
in Boston, MA holding positions at Massachussetts General Hospital, the
Judge Baker Guidance Center, & at Harvard Medical School &
Psychological Clinic
 1936: Left Harvard & joined the staff at Yale University; changed his
family’s surname from “Homburger” to “Erikson” since he was a
neutralized citizen
 1938: Invited to observe the education of native Sioux children on the
Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
 1939: Erikson left Yale, moved his family to California. & joined a team
engaged in a longitudinal study of child development for the University of
California; opened his own private practice in child psychoanalysis
ERIKSON’S PSYCHOSOCIAL
THEORY
 Focuses on how personalities evolve throughout
life as a result of the interaction between
biologically based maturation & the demands of
society
 Writes that society in which one lives makes
certain psychic demands (crises) at each stage of
development.
 During each psychosocial stage, the individual
must seek to adjust to the stresses & conflicts
involved in these crises
EIGHT STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
 Basic trust vs. Basic mistrust
 Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
 Initiative vs. Guilt
 Industry vs. Inferiority
 Identity vs. Role Confusion
 Intimacy vs. Isolation
 Generativity vs. Stagnation
 Ego Integrity vs. Despair
“Hope is both the earliest and the most
indispensable virtue inherent in the state of
being alive. If life is to be sustained hope
must remain, even where confidence is
wounded, trust impaired.”
~ Erik Erikson
BASIC TRUST VS. BASIC MISTRUST




Birth to 1 ½ years (Infant)
Getting & taking
Hope
Developing trust is the first task of
the ego, it is never complete
 The child will never let the mother out
of sight w/o anxiety & rage b/c she
has become an inner certainty as well
as an outer predictability
 Balance of trust w/ mistrust depends
largely on the quality of maternal
relationship
AUTONOMY VS. SHAME & DOUBT




1 ½ to 3 years (Early Childhood)
Holding on & letting go
Willpower
If denied autonomy, the child will
turn against him/herself urges to
manipulate & discriminate
 Shame develops w/ child’s
unconsciousness
 Doubt has to do with having a front
& back, a “behind” subject to its own
rules. Left over doubt may become
paranoia
 Sense of autonomy fostered in the
child & modified as life progresses
serve the preservation in economic &
political life of a sense of justice
INITIATIVE VS. GUILT
 3 to 5 years (Play Age)
 Purpose
 Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning, & attacking a
task for the sake of being active & on the move
 The child feels guilt over the goals contemplated & the acts initiated in
exhubant enjoyment of new locomotor & mental powers
 The castration complex occurring in this stage is due to the child’s erotic
fantasies
 A residual conflict over initiative may be expressed as hysterical denial, which
may causes the repression of the wish or the aborgoration of the child’s ego:
paralysis & exhibition, or overcompensation of showing off
 The Oedipal stage results not only in oppressive establishment of a moral
sense restricting the horizon of the permissible, but also sets the direction
towards the possible & tangible which permits dreams of early childhood to be
attached to goals of an active adult life
INDUSTRY VS INFERIORITY
 5 to 12 years (School Age)
 Competence
 To bring a productive situation to completion is an aim which gradually
supersedes the whims & wishes of play
 Fundamentals of technology are developed
 To lose the hope of such “industrious” association may pull the child back
to the more isolated, less conscious familial rivalry of the Oedipal time
 The child can become a conformist & thoughtless slave whom others
exploit
IDENTITY VS ROLE CONFUSION
 12 to 18 years (Adolescence)
 Fidelity
 Adolescent is newly concerned w/
how they appear to others
 Ego identity is the accrued
confidence that the inner sameness
& continuity prepared in the past
are matched by the sameness &
continuity of one’s meaning of
others, as evidenced in the promise
of a career
 The inability to settle on a school or
occupational identity is disturbing
INTIMACY VS ISOLATION
 18 to 40 years (Young Adulthood)
 Love
 Body & ego must be masters of organ
modes & of the other nuclear conflicts
in order to face the fear of ego loss in
situations which call for self-abandon
 Avoidance of these experiences lead to
isolation & self-absorption
 The counterpart of intimacy is
distantiation
 True genitality can fully develop
 Danger of this stage is isolation which
can lead to severe character problems
GENERATIVITY VS . STAGNATION
 40 to 65 years (Adulthood)
 Care
 Generativity is the concern in establishing & guiding the next
generation
 Simply wanting or having children doesn’t achieve generativity
 Socially-valued work & disciples are also expectations of
generativity
EGO INTEGRITY VS. DESPAIR
 65+ (Maturity)
 Wisdom
 Ego integrity is the ego’s accumulated assurance of its capacity for order &
meaning
 Despair is signified by a fear of one’s own death, as well as the loss of selfsufficiency, & of loved partners & friends
 Healthy children, won’t fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to
fear death
OVERVIEW
ALWAYS REMEMBER DARLINGS….
“The richest & fullest lives
attempt to achieve an inner
balance between three realms:
work, love, & play.”
~ Erik & Joan Erikson
REFERENCES
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_eri
kson.htm
http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html