THEORY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
Hildegard Peplau
The first model to suggest that nurse and patient
act as PARTNERS to initiate change rather than
patient passively receiving treatment and nurse
simply acting on orders from physician.
ASSUMPTIONS
 Nurse and patient can interact
 Both the patient and nurse mature as the result of the
therapeutic interaction
 Communication and interviewing skills remain
fundamental nursing tools.
 Nurses must clearly understand themselves to promote
their client’s growth and to avoid limiting client’s
choices to those that nurses value.
Effective communication causes nurse to take on numerous
roles :
 Stranger
 Resource Person
 Teacher
 Leader
 Surrogate
 Counselor
 Technical Expert
METAPARADIGMS
Nursing
- A significant therapeutic process
- It functions cooperatively with other human processes that
make health possible for individuals in communities.
Human
- An organism that strives in its own way to reduce tension
generated by needs.
- The client is an individual with felt need.
Health
- Word symbol that implies forward movement of personality
and other ongoing human processes in the direction of
creative, productive, personal and community living.
Environment
- Existing forces outside the organism and in the context of
culture.
THERAPEUTIC NURSE-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP
- A professional and planned relationship between the
patient and nurse that focuses on the patient’s needs,
feelings, concepts and ideas.
- Nursing involves interaction between two or more
individuals with a common goal.
- The attainment of this goal, or any goal, is achieved through
series of steps following a sequential pattern.
PHASES OF NURSE - PATIENT RELATIONSHIP
A. Orientation
 Problem defining phase
 Problem defining phase
 Starts when client meets nurse as stranger
 Defining problem and deciding type of service needed
 Client seeks assistance, conveys needs, asks questions,
shares preconceptions and expectations of past
experiences
 Nurse responds, explains roles to client, helps to
identify problems and to use available resources and
services.
B. Identification
 Get acquainted phase of the nurse-patient
relationship
 Parameters are established and met
 Early levels of trust are developed
 Roles begin to be understood
C. Exploitation
 Use of professional assistance for problem solving
alternatives
 Advantages of services are used is based on the needs
and interests of the patients
 Individual feels as an integral part of the helping
environment
 They may make minor requests or attention getting
techniques
 The principles of interview techniques must be used in
order to explore, understand and adequately deal with
the underlying problem.
 Patient may fluctuate on independence
 Nurse must be aware about the various phases of
communication
 Nurse aids the patient in exploiting all avenues of help
and progress is made towards the final step
 Client’s trust of nurse reached full potential
 Client making full use of nursing services
 Solving immediate problems
 Identifying and orienting self to [discharge] goals
D. Resolution
 Client met needs
 Mutual termination of relationship
 Sense of security is formed
 Patient is less reliant on nurse
 Increased self reliance to deal with own problems.
 The patient gradually puts aside old goals and adopts
new goals. This is a process in which the patient frees
himself from identification with the nurse.
INTERPERSONAL THEORY AND NURSING
PROCESS...
- Both are sequential and focus on
therapeutic relationship.
- Both use problem solving techniques for
the nurse and patient to collaborate on,
with the end purpose of meeting the
patients needs.
- Both use observation communication and
recording as basic tools utilized by nursing.
APPLICATION TO PRACTICE
- Focuses on the interpersonal processes and therapeutic
relationship that develops between the nurse & client.
- Interpersonal process is maturing force for personality. It
includes the nurse- client relationship, communication,
pattern integration and the roles of the nurse.
- Understanding one’s own behavior to help others identify
felt and perceived difficulties and to apply principles of
human relations to the problems that arise at all levels of
experience.
HUMAN-TO-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP THEORY
Joyce Travelbee
THE THEORIST
- A nurse educator and psychiatric nurse practitioner and was
enrolled in doctoral study at the time of her death at age 47.
- Best known for her human-to-human relationship model, a
mid-range theory based on the nursing process.
- Her human-to-human relationship model was based on the
work of nurse theorists Hildegard Peplau and Ida Jean
Orlando.
* Emphasized that both nurse and patient should be human =
EQUAL.
OVERVIEW
- Used human because it is unique and valued.
- Caring, in the human-to-human relationship model,
involves the dynamic, reciprocal, interpersonal
connection between the nurse and patient,
developed through communication and the mutual
commitment to perceive self and other as unique and
valued.
- Through the therapeutic use of self and the integration of
evidence-based knowledge, the nurse provides
quality patient care that can foster the patient’s trust and
confidence in the nurse.
- The human-to-human relationship “refers to an experience
or series of experiences between the human being
who is nurse and an ill person,” culminating in the nurse
meeting the ill person’s unique needs
- All human beings endure suffering, though the experience
of suffering differs from one individual to another.
- Hope helps the suffering person to cope, and it is an
assumption of Travelbee’s (1971) that “the role of
the nurse...(is) to assist the ill person (to) experience
hope in order to cope with the stress of illness and
suffering”.
- Nursing care, according to Travelbee (1971), is delivered
through five stages:
 Observation
 Interpretation
 decision-making
 action (or nursing intervention)
 appraisal (or evaluation)
- 5 phases of human-to-human relationship:
 the original encounter
 emerging identities
 Empathy
 Sympathy
 rapport
- The goals of communication in the nursing process are:
 To know (the) person
 To ascertain and meet the nursing needs of ill persons
 To fulfill the purpose of nursing.
5 PHASES
Original Encounter
- The nurse and ill person form judgments about each other
that will guide and shape future nurse–person interactions.
Emerging Identities
 a bond begins to form between nurse and person as
each individual begins to “appreciate the uniqueness of
the other.
Empathy
 The nurse begins to see the individual “beyond outward
behavior and sense accurately another’s inner
experience at a given point in time”
 Empathy enables the nurse to predict what the person
is experiencing and requires acceptance, as empathy
involves the “intellectual and...emotional
comprehension of another person.”
Sympathy
 A demonstration to the person that he is not carrying
the burden of illness alone.
 Trust develops between the nurse and person in the
phase of sympathy, and the person’s distress is
diminished.
Rapport
 A process, a happening, and experience, or series of
experiences, undergone simultaneously by nurse and
the recipient of her care
 Composed of a:
 Cluster of interrelated thoughts and feelings.
 Interest in and concern for others
 Empathy, compassion, and sympathy
 A non-judgmental attitude and respect for each
individual as unique human being.
 Through the establishment of rapport, the nurse is able
to foster a meaningful relationship with the ill person
during multiple points of contact in the care setting.
NURSING PROCESS THEORY
Ida Jean Orlando
THE THEORIST
- Nursing practice experience included obstetrics, medicine,
and emergency room nursing
- She was one of the first nursing leaders to identify and
emphasize the elements of nursing process and the critical
importance of the patient’s participation in the nursing
process.
OVERVIEW
- Finding out and meeting the patient’s immediate need for
help.
- Practice should be based on needs of the patient and that
communication with the patient is essential to
understanding needs and providing effective nursing
care.
- Orlando’s theory stresses the reciprocal relationship
between patient and nurse. What the nurse and the
patient say and do affects them both.
- Focuses on how to produce improvement in the patient’s
behavior.
- Development of nurses as logical thinkers
NURSING PROCESS
 Assessment
 Diagnosis
 Planning
 Implementation
 Evaluation
METAPARADIGM
Nursing
-Process of care in an immediate experience for
avoiding, relieving, diminishing or curing the
individuals sense of helplessness.
-Goal of nursing –
-increased sense of well being
-increase in ability, adequacy in better care of self
-improvement in patients behavior
Human
-Developmental beings with needs
-Individuals have their own subjective perceptions and
feelings that may not be observable directly
Health
-Sense of adequacy or well being.
-Fulfilled needs.
-Sense of comfort
Environment
-Not defined directly.
ASSUMPTIONS
 Persons become patients who require nursing care
when they have needs for help that cannot be met
independently.
 Patients experience distress or feelings of helplessness
as the result of unmet needs for help.
 When individuals are able to meet their own needs,
they do not feel distress and do not require care from a
professional nurse.
 Human beings are able to be secretive or explicit about
their needs, perceptions, thoughts and feelings.
 The nurse – patient situation is dynamic, actions and
reactions are influenced by both nurse and patient.
 Human beings attach meanings to situations and
actions that are not apparent to others.
 Nurses are concerned with needs that patients cannot
meet on their own
APPLICATION TO NURSING PRACTICE
 Clearly applicable to nursing practice.
 Basis of practice in hospitals.
 Used at the patient care level, managerial level, and
nursing division level.
THEORY OF CULTURE CARE DIVERSITY AND UNIVERSALITY
Madeleine Leininger
OVERVIEW
-Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory,
introduced in 1960s to provide culturally congruent
and competent care.
-Developed to establish a substantive knowledge base
to guide nurses in discovery and use of
transcultural nursing practices.
-During the post–World War II period, Dr. Leininger
realized nurses would need transcultural
knowledge and practices to function with people of
diverse cultures worldwide.
The central purpose of TRANSCULTURAL NURSING was to
use research-based knowledge to help nurses discover CARE
VALUES AND PRACTICES and use this knowledge in SAFE,
RESPONSIBLE, AND MEANINGFUL WAYS TO CARE for
people of DIFFERENT CULTURES.
Transcultural Nursing
-comparative study of cultures to understand similarities
(culture universal) and difference (culture-specific)
across human groups.
Culture
-The learned, shared, and transmitted values, beliefs,
norms, and lifeways of a particular group that
guides their thinking, decisions, and actions in
patterned ways.
Care
-Abstract and concrete phenomena related to assisting,
supporting, or enabling experiences toward or for
others with evident or anticipated care needs to
ameliorate or improve a human condition or
lifeway.
-“Caring” refers generally to care actions and activities.
Culture Care Diversity
-Variability and/or differences in meanings, patterns,
values, lifeways, or symbols of care within or
between cultures that demonstrate assistive,
supportive, or enabling human care expressions.
Culture Care Universality
-Common, similar, or dominant uniform care meanings,
patterns, values, lifeways, or symbols that are
manifest with cultures and reflect assistive,
supportive, facilitative, or enabling ways to help
people.
Culture Shock Person

-State of being disoriented or unable to respond to a
different cultural environment because of its
sudden strangeness, unfamiliarity, and
incompatibility to the stranger's perceptions and
expectations at is differentiated from others by
symbolic markers (cultures, biology, territory,
religion).
-Every human culture has generic care knowledge and
practices and usually professional care knowledge
and practices, which vary transculturally and
individually.
-Culture Care values, beliefs, and practices are
influenced by and tend to be embedded in the:

Culturally Congruent Care o Worldview

-Care that fits the people's valued life patterns and set o language
of meanings.
o philosophy
Culturally Competent Care
o religion (and spirituality)
-ability of the practitioner to bridge cultural gaps in
o kinship
caring, work with cultural differences and enable
clients and families to achieve meaningful and o social
supportive caring.
o politicals
THEORY ASSUMPTIONS+METAPARADIGM
o legal
Nursing
o educational
-Care is the essence of nursing.
o economic
-Culturally based care (caring) is essential for wellbeing,
health, growth, and survival, and to face handicaps o technological
or death.
o ethnohistorical
-Culturally based care is the most comprehensive and
holistic means to know, explain, interpret, and o environmental context of cultures.
predict nursing care phenomena and to guide
Health
nursing decisions and actions.
-Beneficial, healthy, and satisfying culturally based care
-Transcultural nursing is a humanistic and scientific care
influences the health and well-being.
discipline and profession.
-Culturally congruent and beneficial nursing care can
-Culturally based caring is essential to curing and
occur only when care values, expressions, or
healing.
patterns are known and used explicitly for
-Culture Care concepts, meanings, expressions, patterns, appropriate, safe, and meaningful care.
processes, and structural forms of care vary
-Culture Care differences and similarities exist between
transculturally with diversities (differences) and
professional and client-generic care in human
some universalities (commonalities).
cultures worldwide.
-Beneficial, healthy, and satisfying culturally based care
Environment
influences the health and well-being of individuals,
families, groups, and communities within their -Cultural conflicts, cultural impositions practices,
environmental contexts. cultural stresses, and cultural pain reflect the lack
of Culture Care knowledge to provide culturally
-Culturally congruent and beneficial nursing care can
congruent, responsible, safe, and sensitive care.
occur only when care values, expressions, or
patterns are known and used explicitly for -The ethnonursing qualitative research method provides
appropriate, safe, and meaningful care. an important means to accurately discover and
interpret local and universal values, complex, and
-Culture Care differences and similarities exist between
diverse Culture Care data
professional and client-generic care in human
cultures worldwide.

CONCEPTS
-The health concepts held by many cultural groups may
result in people choosing not to seek modern
medical treatment procedures.
-Health care provider need to be flexible in the design of
programs, policies, and services to meet the needs
and concerns of the culturally diverse population,
groups that are likely to be encountered.
-The use of traditional or alternate models of health
care delivery is widely varied and may come into
conflict with Western models of health care
practice.
Nursing Decision
Three nursing decision and action modes to achieve
culturally congruent care :
1. Cultural preservation or maintenance.
2. Cultural care accommodation.
3. Cultural care repatterning or restructuring.
Leininger held that caring for people of many different
cultures was a critical and essential need, yet nurses and
other health professionals were not prepared to meet this
global challenge.
APPALICATION TO NURSING
-To develop understanding, respect and appreciation for
the individuality and diversity of patients beliefs,
values, spirituality and culture regarding illness, its
meaning, cause, treatment, and outcome
-The practice of nursing today demands that the nurse :
o Identify and meet the cultural needs of
diverse groups.
o Understand the social and cultural reality
of the client, family, and community.
o Develop expertise to implement culturally
acceptable strategies to provide nursing
care.
o Identify and use resources acceptable to
the client.
CORE, CARE, CURE MODEL
Lydia Hall
METAPARADIGM
Nursing
 It is helping others to move in the direction of self-
awareness.
 Nursing is identified as consisting of participation in
the care, core, and cure aspects of patient care.
Person
 It is composed of three elements: Body, Disease,
Person.
 The individual human who is 16 years of age or
older and past the acute stage of a long-term illness
is the focus of nursing care.
Health
 It is the state of being able to achieve self-
awareness thereby releasing own power to heal.
Environment
 It is the hospital services that are organized to
accomplish tasks efficiently.
 The concept of society or environment is dealt with
in relation to the individual.

MAJOR CONCEPTS
CORE – THE PERSON
(Therapeutic use of Self; Social Sciences)
-Represents the inner feelings and management of the
person
-The core has goals set by himself or herself rather than
by any other person, and behaves according to his
or her feelings and values.
-This involves the therapeutic use of self, and is shared
with other members of the health team.
 Ex: The nurse addresses the social and
emotional needs of the patient for
effective communication and a
comfortable environment.
CARE – THE BODY
(Innate Bodily Care; Natural and Biological Sciences)
-Represents the patient’s body
-The care circle defines the primary role of a
professional nurse such as providing bodily care for
the patient and helping the patient complete such
basic daily biological functions.
-When providing this care, the nurse’s goal is the
comfort of the patient.
 Ex: The nurse gives hands on bodily care
to the patient in relation to activities of
daily living such as toileting and bathing.
CURE – THE DISEASE
(Seeing the patient and family through medical care;
Pathologic and Therapeutic Sciences)
-These are the interventions or actions geared toward
treating the patient for whatever illness or disease
he or she is suffering from.
-During this aspect of nursing care, the nurse is an active
advocate of the patient.
 Ex: The nurse applies medical knowledge
to treatment of the person
 A nurse functions in all three circles but to different
degrees.
 Nurses also share the circles with other providers
ASSUMPTIONS
 Human beings have the capacity to decide on their
behalf.
 Nursing should be done only by a professional and
educated nurse.
 Core followed by Care should be the most
dominant circle in the practice of nursing.
21 NURSING PROBLEMS THEORY
Faye G. Abdellah
THE THEORIST
-Dissertation focused on improving clinical teaching in
nursing (1955).
-She developed a clinical evaluation tool for
undergraduate nursing programs.
-Nursing had to develop a strong scientific base in order
to gain professional status.
-Classified medical diagnoses into 58 categories
representing nursing problems.
-Typology of 21 nursing problems.
METAPARADIGM
Nursing
-Nursing care is doing something to or for the person or
providing information to the person with the goals
of meeting needs, increasing or restoring self-help
ability, or alleviating impairment.
Person
-Abdellah describes people as having physical,
emotional, and sociological needs.
-Patient is described as the only justification for the
existence of nursing.
 -Individuals (and families) are the recipients of nursing 10. Discuss and develop a comprehensive nursing care
plan.

Health
11 skills in developing Nursing Care Plan
-The dynamic pattern of functioning whereby there is a
continued interaction with internal and external 1. Observation of health status.
forces that results in the optimal use of necessary
resources that serve to minimize vulnerabilities 2. Skills of communication.

Environment 3. Application of knowledge.

-Home or community from which patient comes. 4. Teaching of patients and families.

5. Planning and organization of work

MAJOR CONCEPTS 6. Use of resource materials.

-Abdellah’s model of nursing was progressive for the 7. Use of personnel materials.
time in that it refers to a nursing diagnosis during a 8. Problem-solving.
time in which nurses were taught that diagnoses
were not part of their role in health care. 9. Direction of work of others.

-The theory has combined the concepts of health, 10. Therapeutic use of the self.
nursing problems, and problemsolving.
11. Nursing procedure
-Problem-solving is an activity that is inherently logical
in nature. 21 Nursing Problems

-The framework focuses on nursing practice and The twenty-one nursing problems fall into three
individual patients. categories:

-Physical, sociological, and emotional needs of patients;

10 steps to identify the problem -Types of interpersonal relationships between the

patient and nurse;

-Common elements of patient care.

1. Learn to know the patient.
The needs of patients are divided into four categories:
2. Sort out relevant and significant data.
 Basic to all patients
3. Make generalizations about available data in
relation to similar nursing problems presented by  Sustenal Care Needs
other patients.
 Remedial Care Needs
4. Identify the therapeutic plan.
 Restorative Care Needs
5. Test generalizations with the patient and make
BASIC TO ALL PATIENTS
additional generalizations
1. Maintain good hygiene and physical comfort
6. Validate the patient's conclusions about his nursing
problems. 2. Promote optimal activity: exercise, rest and sleep
7. Continue to observe and evaluate the patient over 3. Promote safety through the prevention of
a period of time to identify any attitudes and clues accidents, injury, or other trauma and through the
affecting his behavior. prevention of the spread of infection.
8. Explore the patient's and family's reaction to the 4. Maintain good body mechanics and prevent and
therapeutic plan and involve them in the plan correct deformity
9. Identify how the nurses feel about the patient's SUSTENAL CARE NEEDS
nursing problems.
5. Facilitate the maintenance of a supply of oxygen to
all body cells.
 6. Facilitate the maintenance of nutrition of all body
cells.

7. Facilitate the maintenance of elimination.

8. Facilitate the maintenance of fluid and electrolyte

balance. NON-NURSING THEORIES

9. Recognize the physiological responses of the body HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

to disease conditions.
10. Facilitate the maintenance of regulatory
mechanisms and functions.
11. Facilitate the maintenance of sensory function
REMEDIAL CARE NEEDS
12. Identify and accept positive and negative
expressions, feelings, and reactions.
13. Identify and accept the interrelatedness of
emotions and organic illness.
Abraham Maslow
HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
-Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in
psychology comprising a five-tier model of human
needs.
-Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that people are motivated
to achieve certain needs and that some needs take
precedence over others.

14. Facilitate the maintenance of effective verbal and
non verbal communication.
15. Promote the development of productive
interpersonal relationships.
16. Facilitate progress toward achievement of personal
spiritual goals.
17. Create and / or maintain a therapeutic
environment.
-Maslow noted that the order of needs might be flexible
based on external circumstances or individual
differences.
-For example, he notes that for some individuals, the
need for self-esteem is more important than the
need for love. For others, the need for creative
fulfillment may supersede even the most basic
needs.
-Human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of needs.

18. Facilitate awareness of self as an individual with

varying physical, emotional, and developmental
needs.

RESTORATIVE CARE NEEDS

19. Accept the optimum possible goals in the light of

limitations, physical and emotional.

20. Use community resources as an aid in resolving

problems arising from illness.

21. Understand the role of social problems as

influencing factors in the case of illness.

THEORETICAL ASSERTIONS

-The nursing problem and nursing treatment typologies PLANNED CHANGE

are the principles of nursing practice and constitute
the unique body of knowledge that is nursing. Kurt Lewin

-Correct identification of the nursing problem influences PLANNED CHANGE THEORY

the nurse's judgment in selecting steps in solving
the patient's problem.
-The core of nursing is patient/client problems that
focus on the patient and his/her problems
-Lewin described a method in his field theory that
provides a basis for considering the process of
planned change.
-Planned change occurs by design, as opposed to change
that is spontaneous or that occurs by instance or by
accident.
 -When Lewin’s process is used correctly and in its
entirety by a group or a system, effective change is
implemented.
CONCEPTS
Field
-A field can be viewed as a system
-When change occurs in one part or aspect of the
system, the whole system must be examined to
determine the effect of that change.
Force
-directed entity that has the characteristics of direction,
focus, and strength.
-Lewin states that change is a move from the status quo
that results in a disruption in the balance of forces
or disequilibrium between opposing forces.
2 Forces :
o Driving Force
 encourages or facilitates movement to a
new direction, goal, or outcome.
 It should be identified and accentuated
o Restraining Force
 block or impede progress toward the
goal.
 It should also be identified and minimized
to achieve the desired outcome or
change.
 Lewin describes effective change as the return to
equilibrium as a result of balancing opposing
forces.
Lewin describes effective change as the return to equilibrium
as a result of balancing opposing forces.
3 PHASES OF PLANNED CHANGE
UNFREEZING
 individuals involved must be informed of the need
for change and should agree that change is needed.
 Change, particularly in the work environment, often
leads to feelings of uneasiness, uncertainty, and
loss of control.
 Change, just for the sake of change, is viewed by
most individuals as stressful and unnecessary.
CHANGE / MOVEMENT
 Driving forces should exceed restraining forces.
 The initiator of the change, the change agent,
should recognize that change takes time, should be
accomplished gradually, and should be thoughtfully
and comprehensively planned before
implementation.
REFREEZING
 Stabilization occurs.
 If stabilization is successful, the change is
assimilated into the system.
 Change disrupts the comfort of the status quo; it
leads to disequilibrium. Therefore, resistance to
change should always be anticipated and expected.
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Erik Erikson
KEYPOINTS
-Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a stage theorist who took
Freud’s controversial psychosexual theory and
modified it into an eight-stage psychosocial theory
of development.
-During each of Erikson’s eight development stages, two
conflicting ideas must be resolved successfully in
order for a person to become a confident,
contributing member of society.
-Failure to master these tasks leads to feelings of
inadequacy.
-Critical difference between Erikson and Freud is that
Erikson places much less emphasis on sexual urges
and far more emphasis on social and cultural
influences than Freud did.
-During each of Erikson’s eight stages, there is a
psychological conflict that must be successfully
overcome in order for a child to develop into a
healthy, well-adjusted adult.

ERIKSON’S STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT
Basic trust vs. Mistrust
-Birth to 1 year.
-Infants must learn to trust others to care for their basic
needs.
-If caregivers are rejecting or inconsistent, the infant
may view the world as a dangerous place filled with
untrustworthy or unreliable people.
-The primary caregiver is the key social agent.
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
-1 to 3 years old.
-Children must learn to be “autonomous”—to feed and
dress themselves, to look after and doubt their own
hygiene, and so on.
-Failure to achieve this independence may force the
child to doubt his or her own abilities and feel
ashamed.
-Parents are the key social agents.
Initiative vs. Guilt
-3 to 6 years old.
-Children attempt to act grown up and will try to accept
responsibilities that are beyond their capacity to
handle.
-They sometimes undertake goals or activities that
conflict with those of parents and other family
members, and these conflicts may make them feel
guilty.
-Successful resolution of this crisis requires a balance:
The child must retain a sense of initiative and yet
learn not to impinge on the rights, privileges, or
goals of others.
-The family is the key social agent.
Industry vs. Inferiority
-6 to 12 years old.
-Children must master important social and academic
skills.
-This is a period when the child compares him or herself
with peers.
-If sufficiently industrious, children acquire the social
and academic skills to feel self-assured.
-Failure to acquire these important attributes leads to
feelings of inferiority.
-Significant social agents are teachers and peers.
Identity vs. Role Confusion
-12 to 20 years old.
-This is the crossroad between childhood and maturity.
-The adolescent grapples with the question “Who am I?”
-Adolescents must establish basic social and
occupational identities, or they will remain
confused about the roles they should play as
adults.
- The key social agent is the society of peers
Intimacy vs. Isolation
-20 to 40 years (young adulthood).
-The primary task at this stage is to form strong
friendships and to achieve a sense of love and
companionship (or a shared identity) with another
person.
-Feelings of loneliness or isolation are likely to result
from an inability to form friendships or an intimate
relationship.
-Key social agents are lovers, spouses, and close friends
(of both sexes).
Generativity vs. Stagnation
-40 to 65 years (middle adulthood).
-At this stage adults face the tasks of becoming
productive in their work and raising their families
or otherwise looking after the needs of young
people.
-These standards of “generativity” are defined by one’s
culture.
-Those who are unable or unwilling to assume these
responsibilities become stagnant and self-centered.
-Significant social agents are the spouse, children, and
cultural norms.
Ego Integrity vs. Despair
-Old age.
-The older adult looks back at life, viewing it as either a
meaningful, productive, and happy experience or a
major disappointment full of unfulfilled promise
and unrealized goals.
-One’s life experiences, particularly social experiences,
determine the outcome of this final life crisis.
 -If we follow it, we feel proud and if not, we feel guilt.

PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY
Freud believed that when children are born, their
Sigmund Freud
minds are entirely “id”. As they try and fail things,
learning what is acceptable in society, they
-Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was a theorist who had a develop an “ego”. The “superego” is the last to
great impact on Western thought develop, as children learn the values of their
parents and gain a moral understanding of the
-Freud’s theory states that maturation of the sex instinct
underlies stages of personality development, and
that the manner in which parents manage
children’s instinctual impulses determines the traits
that children display.

3 COMPONENTS OF PERSONALITY

Id

-Only the id is present at birth.

-Animalistic and childish desires and no values

-Operates on pleasure principle, to gain pleasure and

avoid pain.
Oral (0-1 years of age)
-Immediate satisfaction
-Mouth is the pleasure center for development.
-I want it, and want it right now!
-Freud believed this is why infants are born with a
Eg. When hungry or wet, young infants fuss and cry until sucking reflex and desire their mother’s breast.
their needs are met.
-If a child’s oral needs are not met during infancy, he or
she may develop negative habits such as nail biting
or thumb sucking to meet this basic need.
Ego
Anal (1-3 years of age)
-Conscious, rational component of the personality that
reflects the child’s emerging abilities to perceive, -Toddlers and preschool-aged children begin to
learn, remember, and reason. experiment with urine and feces.

-Reality principle. -The control they learn to exert over their bodily
functions is manifested in toilet-training.
-Responsible for dealing with reality.
-Improper resolution of this stage, such as parents toilet
-Exists in conscious mind. training their children too early, can result in a child
-As egos mature, children become better at controlling who is uptight and overly obsessed with order.
their irrational ids and finding appropriate ways to Phallic (3-6 years of age)
gratify their needs.
-Preschoolers take pleasure in their genitals and,
according to Freud, begin to struggle with sexual
Superego desires toward the opposite sex parent (boys to
mothers and girls to fathers).
-Develops from 5 to 6.
-For boys, this is called the Oedipus complex, involving a
-Opposite of the id. boy’s desire for his mother and his urge to replace
his father who is seen as a rival for the mother’s
-Operates on moral principle. attention. At the same time, the boy is afraid his
-Differentiate between good and bad.
 father will punish him for his feelings, so he
experiences castration anxiety.

-The Electra complex, involves a girl’s desire for her

father’s attention and wish to take her mother’s
place.

Latency (6-12 years of age)

-Sexual instincts subside, and children begin to further

develop the superego, or conscience.

-Children begin to behave in morally acceptable ways

and adopt the values of their parents and other
important adults.

Genital (12+ years old)

-Sexual impulses reemerge.

-If other stages have been successfully met, adolescents

engage in appropriate sexual behavior, which may
lead to marriage and childbirth

KEYPOINTS

-Each stage of psychosexual development must be met

successfully for proper development.

-If we lack proper nurturing and parenting during a

stage, we may become stuck in, or fixated on, that
stage.

-Freud’s psychosexual theory has been seriously

criticized for the past few decades and is now
considered largely outdated