• Erikson place more importance in social and historical

Erik Erikson influences

Biography Basic Assumptions

Erik Homburger Erikson was born Erik Salomonsen on
June 15, 1902, near Frankfurt, Germany.
● His mother, Karla Abrahamsen, was from a
wealthy Jewish family in Copenhagen, Denmark.
She had married a man named Valdemar
Salomonsen, but her husband left Europe within
a day of their marriage and went to North
America; she never saw him again and he seems
to have had no further relationship with her.
● A few years later she became pregnant, and in
order to avoid scandal, she either left or was
sent away from Denmark to Germany, where
she would be near relatives. She settled near
Frankfurt, and raised Erikson alone.
• Ego - in contrast with Freud's concept of Ego (being a
diplomat with no power of its own), Erikson's
conception of Ego is more powerful. It is a positive force
that creates a self-identity or a sense of "I"
• Ego helps us adapt to the various conflicts and crises
of life and keeps us from losing our individuality to the
leveling forces of society
• During childhood, the ego is weak, pliable, and fragile;
but by adolescence it should begin to take form and gain
strength.
• Throughout our life, it unifies personality and guards
against indivisibility.
• He defined the ego as a person's ability to unify
experiences and actions in an adaptive manner
Aspects of Ego

• Body ego - refers to experiences with our body; a way

● Shortly after Erikson was born, they received
of seeing our physical self as different for other people.
word that Valdemar Salomonsen had died,
• Ego ideal - represents the image we have of ourselves
making Erikson’s mother a widow. When, at
in comparison with an established ideal; it is responsible
about the age of 3, Erikson became ill, his
for our being satisfied or dissatisfied not only with our
mother took him to the local pediatrician,
physical self but with our entire personal identity.
Theodor Homburger.
• Ego identity - is the image we have of ourselves in the
variety of social roles we play.
● Karla Abrahamsen and Theodor Homburger fell
• Rapid changes in these aspects happen during
in love, got married, and Homburger helped to
adolescence
raise Erikson as his own son. Erikson was 8 years
old when he learned the truth that Homburger
Society's Influence
was not his father, but he still grew up as Erik
Homburger, since his mother never revealed the
• To Erikson, the ego exists as potential at birth, but it
truth about his actual father’s name (Bloland,
must emerge from within a cultural environment.
2005; Coles, 1970; Friedman, 1999).
• Different societies, with their variations in
child-rearing practices, tend to shape personalities that
• He never knew his biological father
fit the needs and values of their culture.
• Speaks mostly German despite speaking English (as
• The Philippine's way of child-rearing is very different
he immigrated to America during the rise of fascism in
from the west therefore the ego develops in a certain
Germany) being his main language for 60 years and at
way that is different from the West.
his house, he has a flag of Denmark.
• Erikson (1968, 1974) argued that historically all tribes
• He has no formal training in Psychoanalysis
or nations, including the United States, have developed
• Undergone psychoanalysis with Anna Freud
what he called a pseudospecies: that is, an illusion
• Had a child with Down Syndrome, told his other
perpetrated and perpetuated by a particular society
children that he died. Only the eldest knew about it.
that it is somehow chosen to be the human species.
When the child died at the age of 20, the other two
children of Erikson were the one who arranged the
Epigenetic Principle
burial of the sibling they never knew existed.

• Epigenetic development implies a step-by step growth

Overview of Psychosocial Development
of fetal organs. The embryo does not begin as a
completely formed little person, waiting to merely
• Erikson was famous for coining the term Identity
expand its structure and form.
Crisis.
• Rather, it develops, or should develop, according to a
• Post-Freudian theory extended Freud's Psychosexual
predetermined rate and in a fixed sequence.
development
• If the eyes, liver, or other organs do not develop
• He suggested that at each stage, a specific
during that critical period for their development, then
psychosocial struggle contributes to the formation of
they will never attain proper maturity.
personality
• In similar fashion, the ego follows the path of
epigenetic development, with each stage developing at
its proper time
• One stage emerges from and is built upon a previous
stage, but it does not replace that earlier stage.
• This implies that failure or success on each stage will
contribute greatly to the next stage of development.
Stages of Psychosocial Development
• Assumptions of Psychosocial Development
• Growth takes place according to the epigenetic
principle.
➔ In every stage of life there is an interaction of
opposites-that is, a conflict between a syntonic
(harmonious) element and a dystonic
(disruptive) element
• At each stage, the conflict between the dystonic and
syntonic elements produces an ego quality or ego
strength, which Erikson referred to as a basic strength.
➔ Too little basic strength at any one stage results
in a core pathology for that stage.
• Although Erikson referred to his eight stages as
psychosocial stages, he never lost sight of the biological
aspect of human development.
• Events in earlier stages do not cause later personality
development. Ego identity is shaped by a multiplicity of
conflicts and events-past, present, and anticipated
• During each stage, but especially from adolescence
forward, personality development is characterized by an
identity crisis, which Erikson (1968) called "a turning
point, a crucial period of increased vulnerability and
heightened potential" (p. 96).
Stages of Psychosocial Development
Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust
Infancy (0-1 years) — Parallel to Oral Stage
• Oral sensory-expanded form of oral stage of Freud;
whereas Freud said that children are focused only in the
mouth, Erikson said that all sensory organs also "take
in" the world
• They can take in air through the lungs and can receive
sensory data without having to manipulate others
(biological)
• Infants not only must get, but they also must get
someone else to give. This early training in interpersonal
relations helps them learn to eventually become givers
(social)
• Basic Trust (syntonic) vs Basic Mistrust (dystonic) -
Infants' most significant interpersonal relations are with
their primary caregiver, ordinarily their mother.
• If they realize that their mother will provide food
regularly, then they begin to learn basic trust;
• In contrast, they learn basic mistrust if they find no
correspondence between their oral sensory needs and
their environment
• Hope (Basic Strength) - By having both painful and
pleasurable experiences, infants learn to expect that
future distresses will meet with satisfactory outcomes
• Withdrawal (Core Pathology) - With little to hope for,
they will retreat from the outside world and begin the
journey toward serious psychological disturbance.
Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
Early Childhood (2-3 y/o) - Anal Stage
• Anal-urethral-muscular mode - Erikson took a broader
view. To him, young children receive pleasure not only
from mastering the sphincter muscle but also from
mastering other body functions such as urinating,
walking, throwing, holding, and so on.
• At this time, children learn to control their body,
especially in relation to cleanliness and mobility. Early
childhood is more than a time of toilet training; it is also
a time of learning to walk, run, hug parents, and hold on
to toys and other objects.
• Autonomy (syntonic) vs Shame and Doubt (dystonic)
• Autonomy - Self-expression
• Shame - is a feeling of self-consciousness, of being
looked at and exposed
• Doubt - on the other hand, is the feeling of not being
certain, the feeling that something remains hidden and
cannot be seen.
• As children stubbornly express their
anal-urethral-muscular mode, they are likely to find a
culture that attempts to inhibit some of their
self-expression.
• The "nakakahiya" attitude of child-rearing in the
Philippines
• Will (Basic Strength) - This step is the beginning of
free will and willpower-but only a beginning. Mature
willpower and a significant measure of free will are
reserved for later stages of development, but they
originate in the rudimentary will that emerges during
early childhood.
• Compulsion (Core Pathology) - Too little will and too
much compulsivity carry forward into the play age as
lack of purpose and into the school age as lack of
confidence.
Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt
Play Age (3-6 y/o) - Phallic Stage
• Genital-Locomotor Mode - Erikson believed that the
Oedipus complex is but one of several important
developments during the play age
• Erikson (1968) contended that, in addition to
identifying with their parents, preschool age children
are developing locomotion, language skills, curiosity,
imagination, and the ability to set goals
• Oedipus Complex - is a drama played out in the child's
imagination and includes the budding understanding of
such basic concepts as reproduction, growth, future,
and death.
• Unless sexual interest is provoked by cultural sex play
or by adult sexual abuse, the Oedipus complex produces
no harmful effects on later personality development.
• The interest that play-age children have in genital
activity is accompanied by their increasing facility at
locomotion. They can now move with ease, running,
jumping, and climbing with no conscious effort; and
their play shows both initiative and imagination.
• Initiative (syntonic) vs Guilt (dystonic) - Although they
begin to adopt initiative in their selection and pursuit of
goals, many goals, such as marrying their mother or
father or leaving home, must be either repressed or
delayed. The consequence of these taboo and inhibited
goals is guilt.
• Purpose (Basic Strength) - Children now play with a
purpose, competing at games in order to win or to be
on top.
• Play age is also the stage in which children are
developing a conscience and beginning to attach labels
such as right and wrong to their behavior. This youthful
conscience becomes the "cornerstone of morality"
Inhibition (Core Pathology) - if guilt is the dominant
element, children may become compulsively moralistic
or overly inhibited
Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority
School Age (7-13 y/o) - Latency
• At this age, the social world of children is expanding
beyond family to include peers, teachers, and other
adult models
• Latency - Sexual latency is important because it allows
children to divert their energies to learning the
technology of their culture and the strategies of their
social interactions.
• As children work and play to acquire these essentials,
they begin to form a picture of themselves as
competent or incompetent.
• These self images are the origin of ego identity-that
feeling of "I" or "me-ness" that evolves more fully during
adolescence.
• Industry (syntonic) vs Inferiority (dystonic) - Although
school age is a period of little sexual development, it is a
time of tremendous social growth.
• Industry - a syntonic quality, means industriousness, a
willingness to remain busy with something and to finish
a job
• Inferiority-feelings of inadequacy if their work is
insufficient to accomplish their goals.
• Competence (Basic Strength) - the confidence to use
one's physical and cognitive abilities to solve the
problems that accompany school age. Competence lays
the foundation for "co-operative participation in
productive adult life"
• Inertia (Core Pathology) - If the struggle between
industry and inferiority favors either inferiority or an
overabundance of industry, children are likely to give up
and regress to an earlier stage of development. They
may become preoccupied with infantile genital and
Oedipal fantasies and spend most of their time in
nonproductive play
Stage 5: Identity vs. Confusion
Adolescence (14-18 y/o) - (Identity Crisis Age)
– Genital Stage
• ADOLESCENCE - the period from puberty to young
adulthood, is one of the most crucial developmental
stages because, by the end of this period, a person must
gain a firm sense of ego identity.
• Erikson (1982) saw adolescence as a period of social
latency, just as he saw school age as a time of sexual
latency
• Adolescence is an adaptive phase of personality
development, a period of trial and error
• Puberty - defined as genital maturation, plays a
relatively minor role in Erikson's concept of
adolescence.
• Puberty is important psychologically because it
triggers expectations of adult roles yet ahead-roles that
are essentially social and can be filled only through a
struggle to attain ego identity
• Identity (syntonic) vs Identity Confusion - The search
for ego identity reaches a climax during adolescence as
young people strive to find out who they are and who
they are not.
• In this search, young people draw from a variety of
earlier self-images that have been accepted or rejected.
• Thus, the seeds of identity begin to sprout during
infancy and continue to grow through childhood, the
play age, and the school age.
• Sources of Identity
• Adolescents' affirmation or repudiation of
childhood identifications - What they truly want
themselves
• Their historical and social contexts, which
encourage conformity to certain standards. -
What society demands them to be.
• Identity is defined both positively and negatively, as
adolescents are deciding what they want to become and
what they believe while also discovering what they do
not wish to be and what they do not believe.
• Identity confusion is a syndrome of problems that
includes a divided self-image, an inability to establish
intimacy, a sense of time urgency, a lack of
concentration on required tasks, and a rejection of
family or community standards.
• Although identity confusion is a necessary part of our
search for identity, too much confusion can lead to
pathological adjustment in the form of regression to
earlier stages of development.
• We may postpone the responsibilities of adulthood
and drift aimlessly from one job to another, from one
sex partner to another, or from one ideology to another.
• Conversely, if we develop the proper ratio of identity
to identity confusion, we will have (1) faith in some sort
of ideological principle, (2) the ability to freely decide
how we should behave, (3) trust in our peers and adults
who give us advice regarding goals and aspirations, and
(4) confidence in our choice of an eventual occupation.
• Fidelity (Basic Strength) - faith in one's ideology.
• After establishing their internal standards of conduct,
adolescents are no longer in need of parental guidance
but have confidence in their own religious, political, and
social ideologies.
• Role Repudiation (Core Pathology) - blocks one's
ability to synthesize various self images and values into
a workable identity. Role repudiation can take the form
of either diffidence or defiance
• Diffidence - an extreme lack of self-trust or
self-confidence and is expressed as shyness or hesitancy
to express oneself.
• Defiance - Defiant adolescents stubbornly hold to
socially unacceptable beliefs and practices simply
because these beliefs and practices are unacceptable
Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation
Young Adulthood/Early Adulthood (19-39y/o)
• For some people, this stage is a relatively short time,
lasting perhaps only a few years. For others, young
adulthood may continue for several decades.
• Genitality - Much of the sexual activity during
adolescence is an expression of one's search for identity
and is basically self-serving.
• True genitality can develop only during young
adulthood when it is distinguished by mutual trust and a
stable sharing of sexual satisfactions with a loved
person.
• Intimacy (syntonic) vs Isolation (dystonic)
• Intimacy - the ability to fuse one's identity with that of
another person without fear of losing it.
• Because intimacy can be achieved only after people
have formed a stable ego, the infatuations often found
in young adolescents are not true intimacy.
• People who are unsure of their identity may either shy
away from psychosocial intimacy or desperately seek
intimacy through meaningless sexual encounters.
• Mature Intimacy - involves sacrifice, compromise, and
commitment within a relationship of two equals
• Isolation - the incapacity to take chances with one's
identity by sharing true intimacy" (Erikson, 1968, p.
137).
• Again, some degree of isolation is essential before one
can acquire mature love.
• Too much togetherness can diminish a person's sense
of ego identity, which leads that person to a
psychosocial regression and an inability to face the next
developmental stage.
Love (Basic Strength) - Erikson (1968, 1982) defined
love as mature devotion that overcomes basic
differences between men and women.
• Mature love means commitment, sexual passion,
cooperation, competition, and friendship.
• Although love includes intimacy, it also contains some
degree of isolation, because each partner is permitted
to retain a separate identity.
Exclusivity (Core Pathology)
• Some exclusivity, however, is necessary for intimacy;
that is, a person must be able to exclude certain people,
activities, and ideas in order to develop a strong sense
of identity.
• Exclusivity becomes pathological when it blocks one's
ability to cooperate, compete, or compromise-all
prerequisite ingredients for intimacy and love
Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation
Adulthood (31-60 y/o)
• ADULTHOOD - that time when people begin to take
their place in society and assume responsibility for
whatever society produces.
• Procreativity - refers to more than genital contact with
an intimate partner. It includes assuming responsibility
for the care of offspring that result from that sexual
contact.
• Ideally, procreation should follow from the mature
intimacy and love established during the preceding
stage.
• Obviously, people are physically capable of producing
offspring before they are psychologically ready to care
for the welfare of these children.
• Generativity (syntonic) vs Stagnation (dystonic)
• Generativity - the generation of new beings as well as
new products and new ideas
• Generativity, which is concerned with establishing and
guiding the next generation, includes the procreation of
children, the production of work, and the creation of
new things and ideas that contribute to the building of a
better world
• People have a need not only to learn but also to
instruct. This need extends beyond one's own children
to an altruistic concern for other young people.
• Generativity grows out of earlier syntonic qualities
such as intimacy and identity. As noted earlier, intimacy
calls for the ability to fuse one's ego to that of another
person without fear of losing it.
• Self-absorption or Stagnation - The generational cycle
of productivity and creativity is crippled when people
become too absorbed in themselves, too self-indulgent.
• Some elements of stagnation and self-absorption,
however, are necessary. Creative people must, at times,
remain in a dormant stage and be absorbed with
themselves in order to eventually generate new growth.
• Care (Basic Strength) - a widening commitment to
take care of the persons, the products, and the ideas
one has learned to care for
• One must have hope, will, purpose, competence,
fidelity, and love in order to take care of that which one
cares for. Care is not a duty or obligation but a natural
desire emerging from the conflict between generativity
and stagnation or self-absorption.
• Rejectivity (Core pathology) - the unwillingness to
take care of certain persons or groups (Erikson, 1982).
• Rejectivity is manifested as self-centeredness,
provincialism, or pseudospeciation: that is, the belief
that other groups of people are inferior to one's own.
• It is responsible for much of human hatred,
destruction, atrocities, and wars.
Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair
Old Age (60 y/o - death)
• Generalized Sensuality - One may infer that it means
to take pleasure in a variety of different physical
sensations-sights, sounds, tastes, odors, embraces, and
perhaps genital stimulation.
• Men become more nurturant and more accepting of
the pleasures of nonsexual relationships, including
those with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren
(Anima rising?)
• Women become more interested and involved in
politics, finance, and world affairs (Erikson, Erikson, &
Kivnick, 1986). (Animus?)
• A generalized sensual attitude, however, is dependent
on one's ability to hold things together, that is, to
maintain integrity in the face of despair.
• Integrity (syntonic) vs Despair (dystonic) - At the end
of life, the dystonic quality of despair may prevail, but
for people with a strong ego identity who have learned
intimacy and who have taken care of both people and
things, the syntonic quality of integrity will
predominate.
• Integrity means a feeling of wholeness and coherence,
an ability to hold together one's sense of "I-ness"
despite diminishing physical and intellectual powers.
• Ego integrity is sometimes difficult to maintain when
people see that they are losing familiar aspects of their
existence: for example, spouse, friends, physical health,
body strength, mental alertness, independence, and
social usefulness.
• Despair literally means to be without hope; the last
dystonic quality of the life cycle, is in the opposite
corner from hope, a person's first basic strength.
• Once hope is lost, despair follows and life ceases to
have meaning.
• Wisdom (Basic Strength) - Erikson (1982) defined
wisdom as "informed and detached concern with life
itself in the face of death itself " (p. 61)
• Wisdom draws from and contributes to the traditional
knowledge passed from generation to generation. In old
age, people are concerned with ultimate issues,
including nonexistence (Erikson, Erikson, & Kivnick,
1986).
• Disdain (Core Pathology) - a reaction to feeling (and
seeing others) in an increasing state of being finished,
confused, helpless." Disdain is a continuation of
rejectivity, the core pathology of adulthood.
Summary of Life Cycle
• The psychosocial crisis is stimulated by a conflict
between the predominating syntonic element and its
antithetical dystonic element.
• From this conflict emerges a basic strength, or ego
quality. Each basic strength has an underlying antipathy
that becomes the core pathology of that stage.
• Humans have an ever-increasing radius of significant
relations, beginning with the maternal person in infancy
and ending with an identification with all humanity
during old age.
Critique of Erikson
• Generated a lot of research in Human Development
• Average in Falsifiability (unlike Freudian Theories)
• Only organized knowledge in a developmental
perspective
• Guide to action is too general (no therapy even)
• Focused more on old age
• Internally consistent
• Moderate parsimony
Concept of Humanity
• Free will and Determinism - Middle
• Pessimism and Optimism - optimistic
• Causality vs Teleology - N/A
• Conscious and Unconscious - Mixed
• Social Influence and Biology - Social Influence
• Similarities and Difference - More on differences (per
culture/society)