DIFFERENCES OF ERIKSON’S THEORY

FROM FREUD

01 02 03
Elaboration on Greater emphasis Impact on
Freud’s stages of on the ego than on personality of
development the id cultural and
historical forces
BIOGRAPHY
• He was born in Frankfurt,
Germany on June 15, 1902.
• He retained the surname
Homburger until age 37, when
he became a US citizen and
adopted the name Erik
Homburger Erikson.
• He literally created himself or
gave himself his own identity as
“Erik’s son”, suggesting that he
was the “son of himself”.
• He met Joan Serson, a Canadian-born
artist and dancer who had been
analyzed by one of Freud’s disciples.
• Erikson’s career timeline:
❖Taught in a small school in Vienna
established for the children of
Sigmund Freud’s patients and
friends
❖Affiliated with Henry Murray’s
Harvard Clinic
❖Joined a guidance center for
emotionally disturbed delinquents
❖Taught in the medical school and
continued his psychoanalytic work
with children
❖Published a book about old age
▪ He died in May 12, 1994 due to infection.
EPIGENETIC
PRINCIPLE OF
MATURATION
Human
development is
governed by a
sequence of stages
that depend on
genetic or
hereditary factors.
CRISIS
- Turning point faced at
each developmental
stage
 -These strengths, or virtues,
emerge once the crisis has
BASIC been resolved satisfactorily.
STRENGTHS -These strengths are
interdependent.
BASIC WEAKNESS

• Motivating characteristics that derive from the unsatisfactory

resolution of developmental crises
• For example, Trust vs Mistrust (Hope – strength; withdrawal
– weakness)

MALDEVELOPMENT

• A condition that occurs when the ego consists solely of a

single way of coping with conflict
• HOPE
- It involves a persistent feeling of confidence, a feeling we will maintain
despite temporary setbacks or reverses
• Children can exercise some degree of choice, to
experience the power of their autonomous will.
• How much will society, in the form of
parents, allow children to express themselves
and do all they are capable of doing?
• WILL
- A determination to exercise freedom of
choice and self-restraint in the face of society’s
demands.
• The child’s initiative can be
channeled toward realistic and
socially sanctioned goals in
preparation for the development
of adult responsibility and
morality.
• PURPOSE
- Courage to envision and pursue
goals
• The attitudes and behaviors of parents and teachers
largely determine how well children perceive themselves
to be developing and using their skills.
• COMPETENCE
- Exertion of skill and intelligence in pursuing and
completing tasks
 The outcome of the Last four stages of
crisis at each of these psychosocial
four childhood stages development, we have
depends on other increasing control over
people. our environment.
• EGO IDENTITY
- The self-image formed during adolescence that integrates our ideas of what we are and what we
want to be.
• IDENTITY CRISIS
- The failure to achieve ego identity during adolescence.
• MORATORIUM
- The experimental period of adolescence in which, during the task of discovering who one is as an
individual separate from family of origin and as part of the broader social context, young people try
out alternative roles before making permanent commitments to an identity.
• Peer groups has strong impact on the development of ego identity in adolescence.
• FIDELITY
- Encompasses sincerity, genuineness, and a sense of duty in our relationships with other people.
• Independence from parents and begin to
function as mature, responsible adults.
• Productive work and establish intimate
relationships.
• Encompassed feelings of caring and
commitment
• Feelings of isolation
- Avoid social contacts and reject other
people and may even become
aggressive toward them.
• LOVE
• Mutual devotion in a shared identity, the
fusing of oneself with another person
• Evaluate the whole of our
life
• EGO INTEGRITY
• - Accepting one’s place
and one’s past
• DESPAIR
• - Frustration, angry about
missed opportunities and
regretful of mistakes that
cannot be rectified
• WISDOM
- Expressed in a detached
concern with the whole of
life
ERIKSON’S VIEW ON HUMAN NATURE

More inclined to growth than

to equilibrium
Optimistic by nature