Essay On Erikson's Eight Stages Of Development

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Humans develop differently in their own ways, this is because not everyone is the same and not everyone goes through the same experiences. Understanding how development works is crucial for understanding the growth and fulfillment of human potential. Erik Erikson describes this development as the eight stages of psychosocial development, in which he covered pretty much every stage of any individual's life. His background is something that influenced his work and helped him come up with an incredible guideline for this process. Erik Erikson is one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. Erikson's experience with not being easily accepted helped him later on in his years to develop his developmental stages. Erikson did not …show more content…

The theory; the eight stages of development is what he is known for the most. Erikson's eight stages of development cover every stage a human can go through at all different ages. Unlike the works of Sigmund Freud, Erikson believes that forming an identity for you is a lifelong task. Sigmund Freud believe this was …show more content…

Transferring from one stage or another is a crucial time in an individual’s life. According to Dunkel and Sefcek (2009) every stage has a name, two possible outcomes and a strength that can be gained if an individual goes through the stage the right way. Depending how a certain individual goes through each stage, leads to how well the next stage of their life may or may not work out. The stages start at infancy and lead their way into late adulthood and cover a range of vast emotions. The stages from infancy to late childhood begin with ‘trust vs mistrust’, ‘autonomy vs shame/doubt’, initiative vs guilt’, and ‘industry vs inferiority’. Once the individual has hit their teenage years throughout early adulthood and finally to late adulthood, the stages they face include, ’identity vs role confusion’, ‘intimacy vs isolation’, ‘generativity vs stagnation’, and ‘ego integrity vs despair’. The first stage is where ground rules are made to impact a child’s life one