Amanda Erikson's Developmental Theory

Developmental Hypotheses
Developmental theories focus on the growth and development of humans at certain ages and across the lifespan.
Freud believed that personality was developed by the successful completion of the stages he postulated and was fully developed by puberty. He also reasoned that if a stage was unresolved, the person would be fixated at this stage. Fixation would result in mental health disorders. According to Freud’s developmental theory, Amanda being 11 years old places her in the Latency stage. During this stage, Amanda is developing defense mechanisms and has no libido or adult fixation expectation at this stage. Amanda however, identifies with her dad and is fixated on his presence and attention. This is also a time where

Erikson developed his psychosocial development theory and identified eight stages through which a human being should pass, from infancy to late adulthood. Each stage has a challenge that if not successfully completed may be expected to reappear as problems in the future. Amanda is currently in the industry versus inferiority stage with competence as the conflict. During this stage, the aim is to bring a productive situation to completion 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 if the Oedipal time. Amanda currently struggles with cleaning her room and keeping her area tidy due to her anxiety and obsession, which may suggest an issue with competence. Amanda also has difficulties with initiating or learning appropriate coping skills for managing her distress

Piaget purported that cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes because of biological maturation and environmental experiences. He purposed schemas as the building blocks of knowledge while adaptation processes such as assimilation and accommodation enable the transition from one stage to another. Amanda is currently in transition from the Concrete operational stage to the Formal operational stage. During the concrete operational stage, the child engages in logical or operational thought and can work things out internally in their head rather than physically trying things. Amanda was able to perform in the Extremely High range on a subtest Arithmetic which is a timed task that requires quantitative reasoning and the ability to calculate math problems internally. She, however, performed in the Average range on a task Figure weights which requires the use of abstract, quantitative reasoning and analytical skills on the WISC-V and assesses the child’s ability to conserve number, mass, and weights. Amanda’s complex thinking and reasoning ability were also evident in her projective testing drawing as she displayed an integration of thought processes aligned with the Concrete and Formal Operations stages. Her incompetence in mastering theoretical, hypothetical and counterfactual thinking associated with the Formal Operations stage was