Psychosocial Theory: Erikson
After reading this. i feel so ****ed up. It seems like ive messed up in every stage. what a downer. :scratch:
Stage 1 - Basic Trust vs. Mistrust
Developing trust is the first task of the ego, and it is never complete.
The child will let mother out of sight without anxiety and rage because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability.
The balance of trust with mistrust depends largely on the quality of maternal relationship.
Stage 2 - Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
If denied autonomy, the child will turn against him/herself urges to manipulate and discriminate.
Shame develops with the child's self-consciousness.
Doubt has to do with having a front and back -- a "behind" subject to its own rules. Left over doubt may become paranoia.
The sense of autonomy fostered in the child and modified as life progresses serves the preservation in economic and political life of a sense of justice.
Stage 3 - Initiative vs. Guilt
Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning, and attacking a task for the sake of being active and on the move.
The child feels guilt over the goals contemplated and the acts initiated in exuberant enjoyment of new locomoter and mental powers.
The castration complex occuring in this stage is due to the child's erotic fantasies.
A residual conflict over initiative may be expressed as hysterical denial, which may cause the repression of the wish or the abrogation of the child's ego: paralysis and inhibition, or overcompensation and 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 and the tangible which permits dreams of early childhood to be attached to goals of an active adult life.
After Stage 3, one may use the whole repetoire of previous modalities, modes, and zones for industrious, identity-maintaining, intimate, legacy-producing, dispair-countering purposes.
Stage 4 - Industry vs. Inferiority
To bring a productive situation to completion is an aim which gradually supersedes the whims and wishes of play.
The 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 and thoughtless slave whom others exploit.
Stage 5 - Identity vs. Role Confusion (or "Diffusion")
The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others.
Ego identity is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others, as evidenced in the promise of a career.
The inability to settle on a school or occupational identity is disturbing.
Stage 6 - Intimacy vs. Isolation
Body and ego must be masters of organ modes and of the other nuclear conflicts in order to face the fear of ego loss in situations which call for self-abandon.
The avoidance of these experiences leads to isolation and self-absorption.
The counterpart of intimacy is distantiation, which is the readiness to isolate and destroy forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one's own.
Now true genitality can fully develop.
The danger at this stage is isolation which can lead to sever character problems.
Erikson's listed criteria for "genital utopia" illustrate his insistence on the role of many modes and modalities in harmony:
mutuality of orgasm
with a loved partner
of opposite sex
with whom one is willing and able to share a trust, and
with whom one is willing and able to regulate the cycles of work, procreation, and recreation
so as to secure to the offspring all the stages of satisfactory development
Stage 7 - Generativity vs. Stagnation
Generativity is the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation.
Simply having or wanting children doesn't achieve generativity.
Socially-valued work and disciples are also expressions of generativity.
Stage 8 - Ego Integrity vs. Despair
Ego integrity is the ego's accumulated assurance of its capacity for order and meaning.
Despair is signified by a fear of one's own death, as well as the loss of self-sufficiency, and of loved partners and friends.
Healthy children, Erikson tells us, won't fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.
