Erikson Life Course Analysis

Despite these changes, there is still some room for improvement. More specifically, although life course is a strong theory, as it explores the diversity of individual’s lives and heterogeneity, life course theory takes on a behavioural perspective, which also makes heterogeneity one of its greatest limitations. As life course theory is a behavioural theory, it tends to group individuals in search of patterns. For example it often looks

Lifespan is the period that begins at conception and ends after death. However, Sigelman and Rider’s definition of lifespan is more formal which is “systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death or from “womb to tomb””. Taking a lifespan perspective is looking at an individual to see how that individual grows ,changes, or stay the same over time, usually from birth to death. There are three developments across the lifespan which are physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development. Physical development is the growth of the body and its organs, while cognitive development is all the development in the brain and how we use it. Psychosocial development is the development of our personalities and

Two theories that will be discussed in this paper is Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development and John Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment. Erikson’s theory is considered psychosocial, emphasizing the importance of social and cultural factors within a lifespan, from infancy to later adulthood. Erikson’s theory is broken down into eight consecutive age-defined stages. During each stage, a person experiences a psychosocial crisis that contributes to their personality development. Erikson was highly influenced by Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytical Theory of Development. Although, at first Freud was limited to childhood based on the phallic stage, Erikson focused on developing a lifespan theory. The eight stages are as followed:

Several themes are demonstrated in the course of lifespan development. Although each child develops individually, common themes can be seen throughout the development. The following are explanations of four universal themes of human development, including the continuity-discontinuity issue, nature versus nurture, the active-passive issue, and the development across domains issue, and how my personal experiences relate to the understanding of each theme.

After an examination of Erik Erikson and Daniel Levinson’s theories at first sight not much is alike, since the stages both differ, but digging deeper in Erikson's and Levinson’s theories have similar ideas in social development; after all, these two studies differ in the outcome. Erik erikson's theories have a greater underlining on child-adolescent development, he believes that early development of a child is the foundation and is the greatest impact on a person's identity and personality later on in life. Erikson presents the stages from childhood to adulthood, but in his theory the only significant development is during childhood, which is the problem, since an individual goes through life experiences throughout life they may have a great impact as an adult too. On the other hand Daniel Levinson’s theory signifies changes throughout all of life's experiences, from childhood to adulthood and continuing. Levinson’s theory believes that we adapt ad we let go of certain things as we move on in life and move from one stage to another.

inferiority. In this stage, children look to develop a sense of good work and study habits looking for praise and satisfaction. If praise is withheld and instead a child is discouraged by way of scolding or rejection, feelings of inferiority and inadequacy may occur.

(James & Gilliland, 2013) “Developmental crises are events in the normal flow of human growth and evolution whereby a dramatic change or shift occurs that produces abnormal responses” (James & Gilliland, 2013, p. 16) With Emma being sixteen years old, according to Erik Erikson (1902-1994) theory about the social development, she is going through the stage Identity versus Identity Confusion. Erikson’s psychosocial theory consists of eight developmental stages that people need to go through starting from birth until death. Each phase in the psychosocial development of people is characterized by a conflict. This conflict must be solved in a positive way before the individual can move on to the next stage. (Kail, 2012) We can assume that in Emma her case there is an identity crisis, “the awareness of our ultimate aloneness can be frightening, and some clients may attempt to avoid accepting their aloneness and isolation.” (Corey, 2009, p. 144) Emma’s mother is so occupied with her own problems that Emma deals with a role confusion as she is no longer the child but she needs to take care of her brother. “Identity issues come in two forms, personal and social.

Erickson holds that we develop as humans with emotional requirements that must be completed to be successful (Mooney, 2013). When she was supposed to develop Hope she was abused. When she was to develop Will she was in foster homes. Her life was turned upside down again when she was five and she was in a new home with new people on the other side of the country this was disruptive to forming purpose and competency. When she was to build self-worth, she was told she had none. She is currently in the Identity vs. Role Confusion working on fidelity. She is holding her friends close to feed this milestone. She is using them to show her continuing loyalty and support. Things she has not been shown at home. She is using cry her academics for a cry for help. Her attempts to get the attention to adults she trusted only landed her is more trouble at

During this stage in life, Erikson describes individuals in the generativity vs. stagnation stage (Capp, 2004). Individuals between the ages 40 to 65 have generally married, have a career and have their own families. Erikson refers to generativity as a concern of the next generation by guiding and establishing them. He also stated that a well-developed man wants to feel needed and the younger generation should acknowledge that need (Capp, 2004). Dunkel and Sefcek (2009) stated that the individual is faced with the challenge of self constructive tasks and to help the next generation, not just their children but other individuals that may need guidance or influence.

Erikson's stages of life include eight main stages. The first stage is infancy and it starts at 0 to 1 year of age and the basic conflict is called trust vs mistrust. In this stage, infants begin to start developing trust when their caregivers provide care, reliability, and affection. Lack of this will lead to mistrust. The second stage is early childhood and it starts at 2 to 3 years of age and the basic conflict is called autonomy vs shame and doubt. In this stage, children build up personal control over their physical skills and mostly their independence. Success over this will cause feelings of autonomy and failure leads to shame and doubt. The third stage is preschool and it starts at 3 to 5 years of age and the basic conflict is initiative vs guilt. In this stage, children assert

Theories of late adulthood development are quite diverse in later adulthood than at any other age. They include self-theory, identity theory and stratification theory. The self-theory tries to explain the core self and search to maintain one’s integrity and identity. The older adults tend to integrate and incorporate their various experiences with their vision and mission for their respective community (Berger, 2008). Also, the older people tend to feel that their attitude, personalities and beliefs have remained in a stable state over their lives even as they acknowledge that physical changes have taken place in their bodies. Objects, things and even places become precious as a way to hold on to identity that has been there for quite some

Life course perspective helps social workers look at people from a holistic stand point versus from just one perspective. It was created from “micro, messo, and macro system vantage points” (Hutchison, 2005) Life course perspective examines a person, their environment, and the time. These categories can be broken down further into subcategories such as the location, life events, age and much more. Micheal Rutter stated that there are three types of life events that serve as turning points in a life course perspective. The three types that serve as turning points are “life events that open or close opportunities, life events that make a lasting change on the environment, life events that change self concept” (Rutter, 1996) The life course perspective

This essay will focus on the two stages, drawn from the eight stages of Erikson Theory, namely: Trust vs Mistrust and Generativity vs Stagnation. The essay will further discuss authoritative parenting and attachment styles. The eight stages which a healthy person should undergo from infancy to late adulthood, are built on the success of mastering the previous stage. However, if not completed, problems may emerge at a later stage in the individual development. ( Erikson,1956)

In life of an individual there are several developmental changes or events which occur as continuity of span of life. Some of life developmental stages include infantile, adolescence, maturity, and adulthood. These phases have biological, social, psychological and physiognomic reasons to which an individual completed the course of life. Psychological analysis upon the developmental stages include the focus on characterization, demarcation and the social interaction of individual’s life (Baltes & Schaie, 2013).

In this assignment, I will be focusing on Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. There are eight stages in which only the fifth stage”identity versus role confusion” will be discussed. Aspects such as identity crises, exploration of autonomy whilst developing a sense of self, factors that may contribute to identity formation as well as the successful/unsuccessful resolution of this particular stage will be discussed thoroughly. James Marcia’s identity statuses will be highlighted. This essay will then progress into a case study based on Anna Monroe in connection to the difficulties she faced namely gender, sexuality, peer pressure, suicide and the experimentation with different identities she encountered.