Reflection Paper

I believe that I have completed the first five stages of Erickson’s psychological stages. I do not remember
very much from the first three psychological stages of my life, but I am led to believe that I was just like
any other kid. There may have been a few instances where I may have been I bit too forceful with my
peers. This led to me not feeling so confident in asserting myself in my environment. During the fourth
psychological stage, I had some issues that I needed to work through. Although my academic was
satisfactory as a small child, as I grew up I did not study as hard as I perhaps could have. This led to a
feeling of inferiority because I was not up to the same level of academic performance of many of my
peers. However, this passed once I had almost finished the adolescence stage. This was a critical stage in
my life because it taught me how to interact with the people around me. Unlike during my childhood, it
was here that I developed self-confidence in my own abilities and was able to find my place in society.
Many people go down the wrong path during this stage in life, but I think that my childhood prepared
me well for it. I was mature enough to handle the adolescence stage without any major difficulties. I am
currently in the middle of the sixth psychological stage, which is the young adulthood stage. Since I have
already passed the adolescence stage, I have now moved on to this stage in my life. I believe that I am
doing okay in my current stage because I do not have any problems with intimacy. I am naturally
affectionate, so this should help me to be successful during this stage of my life. This is one of the longest
psychological stages in my life so I need to make sure that I begin it right. I have done this by loving the
people who are closest to me in my life and also making sure that I keep strong relationships with them. I
would like to continue this throughout the rest of this stage of my life and hopefully use it once I move to
the middle adulthood stage. The next two stages of my life will be the winding down stages. I hope to be
successful in my life so that I feel as if I have achieved something. My strong work ethic now should hold
me in good stead once I get into my 40’s, 50’s, and beyond. I do not want to be someone who looks back
at their life with regret that they never got to achieve the things that they wanted to. I would like to be
an example to others (my children perhaps) so that they could live their lives the way that I did mine. I
would feel disappointed if I did not achieve all the goals that I had set for myself earlier in my life.