You are on page 1of 6

Freud proposed that psychological development in childhood takes place during

five psychosexualstages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. These are
called psychosexual stages because each stage represents the fixation of libido (roughly
translated as sexual drives or instincts) on a different area of the body.

Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, as articulated in the second half of


the 20th century by Erik Erikson in collaboration with Joan Erikson,[1] is a
comprehensive psychoanalytic theory that identifies a series of eight stages that a healthy
developing individual should pass through from infancy to late adulthood.
Erikson's stage theory characterizes an individual advancing through the eight life
stages as a function of negotiating their biological and sociocultural forces. Each stage is
characterized by a psychosocial crisis of these two conflicting forces. If an individual does
indeed successfully reconcile these forces (favoring the first mentioned attribute in the crisis),
they emerge from the stage with the corresponding virtue. For example, if an infant enters
into the toddler stage (autonomy vs. shame and doubt) with more trust than mistrust, they
carry the virtue of hope into the remaining life stages.[2] The challenges of stages not
successfully completed may be expected to return as problems in the future. However,
mastery of a stage is not required to advance to the next stage. The outcome of one stage is
not permanent and can be modified by later experiences.

You might also like