Erikson's Theory: The Eight Stages Of Human Development

I like reading Anna Harrington’s readings about resilience and how it defines a person in how they strive and overcome challenges and obstacles that come their way in this world. People with resilience as I would see would be looked as “survivors” unlike those people without resilience tend not to make it in this ever-changing world we live in. I can relate this article to my life being born and raised in Chicago, Illinois to going off into the U.S. Army with multiple of combat deployments during the Iraq war, my time spent in law enforcement agency/legal government sector and to where I am at now. Much of my life’s experience had been trial-and-error as nothing where I had to learn quick while still making some errors, but able to strive

Resilience is the ability to overcome adversity, fear, and show strength. Many people run away from fear, it is the one thing many hope they never have to encounter. Fear makes people buckle and waver not wanting to fight against it. It is those who are truly resilient like Jason Zimmerman and Frederick Douglass, who faced more fear than anyone could imagine, but still fought through that fear because they are the true definition of resilience. Jason Zimmerman, who was first a cancer patient at the age of six months had so much fear to overcome.

Have you ever been going through a terrible time in your life and just felt like giving up? How did you overcome this rough patch? For most people, the answer is that they stayed resilient and kept their head up with faith. Resilience is extremely important in an individual's life. An example of resilience can be shown in "The Cellist of Sarajevo" by Steven Galloway.

A person's ability to adapt to and overcome hardship is called resilience. It is known to be a set of abilities that may be learned and improved through practice and experience. It is a person's power to not get defeated by what life throws at them, but to use it as a chance for growth. The ability to handle the inevitable setbacks and obstacles that come our way is improved by developing resilience, which eventually results in a stronger sense of well-being and satisfaction in life. Through those obstacles, a person transforms to be a stronger person.

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. Therefore, individuals in this stage main focus is to contribute to their environment or social groups. They want to establish positive influences on future generations that would benefit them (Capp, 2004).

According to Shaffer (2009), Erikson believed that human beings face eight major crises, or conflicts, during the course of their lives. Each conflict has its own time for emerging, as dictated by both biological maturation and the social demands that developing people experience at particular points in life (p.42). Every age someone deals with tells a story in their lifetime. There are eight stages in the Erikson’s stages.

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.

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: Trust vs. Mistrust (infancy): The basic and fundamental psychological task is for infants to develop a sense that their needs will be met by the outside world. Is their caregiver responsive, reliable, and willing to meet their needs? That basic trust is facilitated by a responsive caregiver once an infant gets hungry, injured, or needs to be changed.

According to Masten (2001) “resiliency refers to a class of phenomena characterized by good outcomes in spite of serious threats to adaptation or development” (p. 228). Garmezy (1991) considers the intelligence level of an individual and ability to possess the mind power to tackle an adverse situation as one pleases as the core characteristics of a resilient individual. Garmezy (1991) resiliency framework allows student affairs professionals is to examine the strengths of disadvantaged students who are faced with various life stressors, but

His childhood, education experiences, and careers influenced his contributions to lifespan development. As a “neo-Freudian”, Erikson developed eight psychosocial stages of development that greatly correspond with Freud’s Psychosexual Stages (Broderick

Hardy, Concato & Gill (2004) stated that resilient people are those who display “the capacity to remain well, recover, or even thrive in face of adversity”. Masten (2001) as mentioned that they are the ordinary person dealing with the challenges and tragedies of everyday real life. For instance, the response of many Americans to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and individuals’ efforts to rebuild their lives shows their resiliency. Being resilient does not mean that a person does not have or had experience difficulty or distress; the emotional pain and sadness are common but the path to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress. Resilience is not a trait which people either has or do not have whereas it involves

According to Werner J. Meinhold there are 5 stages plus 2 main cycles of development that human being passes through in which the first 5 stages complete a cycle. In each stage there are specific needs, wishes and desires to be fulfilled to allow healthy human development. Each stage builds over the next stage like building blocks. Imagine a building with 5 floors, during the building phase the contractor didn’t provide the correct slop to the 2nd floor, which causes this floor to have problems in sanitation and flooding. No one noticed during the building phase this problem however it was only noticed after the building’s opening.

The online article, Erik Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development from Psychology

Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development Many researchers have tried to revise after Freud 's psychoanalysis, to show the value associated with the process and I have to follow their development (Kail, Cavanaugh, 2004). The most prominent of the so-called ego psychology was Erik Erikson. As with other postfreydistov for Erickson the greatest importance was the self and its adaptive capacity in connection with the problem of the individual. However, this does not mean that he neglected his theory of biological or social factors (Kail, Cavanaugh, 2004).

Erik Erikson developed model for the interpretations of reflections due to experiences during eight stages in life of an individual. He constructed model based on psychosocial developmental processes, which can be viewed as; Table: Eight psychosocial crisis of Erik Erikson’s Model (Erikson, 1950) No. Psychosocial Crisis Stage Issues Virtues Distortions 1. “Trust Vs. Mistrust” Infant Feeding, sleep, comfort Hope Sensory