Stages of development according to Erik Erickson. Age periodization in the works of Erik Erickson
Erik Erikson - a follower of 3. Freud, who expanded psychoanalytic theory. He was able to go beyond it by beginning to consider the development of the child in a wider system of social relations.
Features of the formation of personality depend on the economic and cultural level of development of the society in which the child grows up, because of what historical stage he stopped this development. A child living in New York in the middle of the 20th century does not develop in the same way as a small Indian from a reservation, where the old cultural traditions have been preserved in their entirety and time has, as it were, stopped.
The values and norms of society are passed on to children in the process of education. Children who belong to communities of almost the same level of socio-economic development develop different personality traits due to different cultural traditions associated with the main type of activity, and accepted styles education. In different Indian reservations, E. Erickson observed two tribes - the Sioux, former buffalo hunters, and the Yurok, fishermen and acorn gatherers. In the Sioux tribe, children are not swaddled tight, they are fed for a long time breast milk, do not strictly monitor neatness and generally limit their freedom of action a little. Children are guided by the historically established ideal of their tribe - a strong and courageous hunter on the endless prairies - and acquire such traits as initiative, determination, courage, generosity in relations with fellow tribesmen and cruelty towards enemies. In the Yurok tribe, on the contrary, children are weaned early, swaddled tightly, taught early to neatness, restrained in communicating with them. They grow up silent, suspicious, stingy, prone to hoarding.
Personal development in its content is determined by what society expects from a person, what values and ideals it offers, what tasks it sets for him at different age stages. But the sequence of stages in the development of a child depends on the biological principle. The child, maturing, necessarily goes through a series of successive stages. At each stage he acquires certain quality(personal neoplasm), which is fixed in the structure of the personality and persists in subsequent periods of life.
Until the age of 17-20, there is a slow, gradual formation of the main nuclear formation - the identity of the individual. The personality develops through inclusion in various social communities (nation, social class, professional group, etc.) and experiencing its inextricable connection with them. Identity - psychosocial identity - allows a person to accept himself in all the richness of his relations with the outside world and determines his system of values, ideals, life plans, needs, social roles with appropriate forms of behavior. Identity is a condition of mental health: if it does not develop, a person does not find himself, his place in society, turns out to be "lost".
Identity is formed in adolescence, it is a characteristic of a fairly mature personality. Until that time, the child must go through a series of identifications - identifying himself with his parents, boys or girls (gender identification), etc. This process is determined by the upbringing of the child, since from his very birth, the parents, and then the wider social environment, introduce him to their social community, group, transmit to the child its inherent worldview.
Another important moment for the development of personality is crisis. Crises are inherent in all age stages, these are "turning points", moments of choice between progress and regression. Each personal quality that manifests itself at a certain age contains a person's deep attitude to the world and to himself. This attitude can be positive, associated with the progressive development of the personality, and negative, causing negative shifts in development, its regression. A child and then an adult have to choose one of two polar attitudes - trust or distrust in the world, initiative or passivity, competence or inferiority, etc. When the choice is made and the corresponding personality quality, say positive, is fixed, the opposite pole of the relationship continues to openly exist and can manifest itself much later, when an adult person encounters a serious life failure.
The sequence of appearance of these polar personality neoplasms is reflected in Table. 6.1.
Table 6.1. Stages of personality development according to E. Erickson
|
Development stage |
Area of social relations |
Polar personality traits |
The result of progressive development |
|
1. Infancy (0 1) |
replacement person |
Trust in the world - mistrust in the world |
Energy and life joy |
|
2. Early childhood (1-3) |
Parents |
Independence - shame, doubts |
Independence |
|
3. Childhood (3-6) |
Parents, brothers and sisters |
Initiative - passivity, guilt |
purposefulness |
|
4. School age (6-12) |
School, neighbors |
Competence - inferiority |
Mastering knowledge and skills |
|
5. Adolescence and youth (12-20) |
Peer groups |
Personal identity non-recognition |
Self-determination, devotion and loyalty |
|
6. Early maturity (20-25) |
Friends, loved ones |
Proximity - isolation |
cooperation, love |
|
7. Average age (25-65) |
Profession, native scrap |
Productivity - stagnant |
Creativity and care |
|
8. Late maturity (after 65) |
Humanity, neighbors |
Personal integrity - despair |
Wisdom |
At the first stage of development (oral-sensory), corresponding to infancy, there is a trust or distrust in the world. With the progressive development of personality, the child "chooses" a trusting relationship. It manifests itself in light feeding, deep sleep, relaxation of internal organs, normal bowel function. A child who trusts the world that surrounds him, without much anxiety and anger, endures the disappearance of his mother from his field of vision: he is sure that she will return, that all his needs will be satisfied. The baby receives from the mother not only milk and the care he needs, the "nourishment" of the world of forms, colors, sounds, caresses, smiles is also connected with her. Maternal love and tenderness determines the "quantity" of faith and hope taken from the first life experience child.
At this time, the child, as it were, "absorbs" the image of the mother (there is a mechanism of introjection). This is the first step in the formation of the identity of a developing personality.
The second stage (musculo-anal) corresponds to an early age. The possibilities of the child sharply increase, he begins to walk and defend his independence. But the growing sense of self-reliance should not undermine the trust in the world that has developed before. Parents help to keep it, limiting the desires that appear in the child to demand, appropriate, destroy when he tests his strength.
The demands and limitations of the parents at the same time create the basis for negative feelings of shame and doubt. The child feels the "eyes of the world" watching him with condemnation, strives to make the world not look at him, or wants to become invisible himself. But this is impossible, and the child develops "inner eyes of the world" - shame for his mistakes, awkwardness, dirty hands, etc. If adults make too severe demands, often blame and punish the child, he develops a fear of "losing face", constant alertness, stiffness, uncommunicativeness. If the child's desire for independence is not suppressed, a correlation is established between the ability to cooperate with other people and insist on one's own, between freedom of expression and its reasonable restriction.
At the third stage (locomotor-genital), coinciding with preschool age, the child actively learns the world around him, models in the game the relationships of adults that have developed in production and in other areas of life, quickly and eagerly learns everything, acquiring new tasks and responsibilities. Initiative is added to independence.
When the child's behavior becomes aggressive, the initiative is limited, feelings of guilt and anxiety appear; in this way, new internal instances are laid - conscience and moral responsibility for one's actions, thoughts and desires. Adults should not overload the conscience of the child. Excessive disapproval, punishment for minor offenses and mistakes cause a constant feeling of guilt, fear of punishment for secret thoughts, revenge. Initiative is inhibited, passivity develops.
At this age stage, gender identification occurs and the child masters a certain form of behavior, male or female.
The younger school age is prepubertal, i.e., preceding the child's puberty. At this time, the fourth stage (latent) is unfolding, associated with the upbringing of industriousness in children, the need to master new knowledge and skills. The school becomes for them a "culture in itself", with its own specific goals, achievements and disappointments. Comprehension of the basics of work and social experience enables the child to gain the recognition of others and acquire a sense of competence. If the achievements are small, he acutely experiences his ineptitude, inability, disadvantageous position among his peers and feels doomed to be mediocre. Instead of a sense of competence, there is a sense of inferiority.
Initial schooling- this is also the beginning of professional identification, the feeling of one's connection with representatives of certain professions.
Adolescence and youth constitute the fifth stage of personality development, the period of the deepest crisis. Childhood is coming to an end, and this long stage of the life path, ending, leads to the formation of identity. It combines and transforms all the child's previous identifications; new ones are added to them, since the matured, outwardly changed child is included in new social groups and acquires other ideas about himself. The holistic identity of the individual, trust in the world, independence, initiative and competence allow the young man to solve the main task that society sets for him - the task of self-determination, the choice of a life path.
When it is not possible to realize oneself and one's place in the world, there is a diffuseness of identity. It is associated with an infantile desire not to enter adulthood for as long as possible, with a vague, persistent state of anxiety, a feeling of isolation and emptiness. The diffuseness of identity can manifest itself in a hostile rejection of social roles that are desirable for the family and the inner circle of a young man (male or female, national, professional, class, etc.), in contempt for everything domestic and overestimation of the foreign, in the desire to "become nothing" (if this is the only remaining way of self-assertion).
In early adulthood, in the sixth stage, the adult is faced with the problem of intimacy. It is at this time that true sexuality manifests itself. But a person is ready for intimacy with another, not only sexually, but also socially. After a period of searching and asserting his own identity, he is ready to "merge" it with the identity of the one he loves. A close relationship with a friend or loved one requires loyalty, self-sacrifice, and moral strength. The desire for them should not be drowned out by the fear of losing one's "I".
The third decade of life is the time of creating a family. It brings love, understood by E. Erickson in the erotic, romantic and moral sense. In marriage, love is manifested in care, respect and responsibility for a life partner.
Inability to love, establish loved ones trusting relationship with other people, the preference for superficial contacts leads to isolation, a feeling of loneliness. Maturity, or middle age, is the seventh stage of personality development, an unusually long one. Decisive here is "man's attitude to the products of his labor and to his offspring", concern for the future of mankind. A person strives for productivity and creativity, for the realization of his abilities to pass something on to the next generation - his own experience, ideas, created works of art, etc.
The desire to contribute to the life of future generations is natural, at this age it is realized, first of all, in relations with children. E. Erickson emphasizes the dependence of the older generation in the family on the younger. A mature person needs to be needed.
If productivity is not achieved, if there is no need to take care of other people, deeds or ideas, indifference, self-centeredness appears. Anyone who indulges himself like a child comes to stagnation, impoverishment of his personal life.
The last stage, late maturity, becomes integrative: at this time "the fruits of the seven preceding stages ripen." A person accepts the life path he has traveled for granted and acquires the integrity of the personality.
Only now is wisdom emerging. A look into the past makes it possible to say: "I am satisfied." Children and creative achievements perceived as an extension of oneself, and the fear of death disappears.
People who are dissatisfied with the life they have lived and consider it a chain of mistakes and unrealized opportunities do not feel the integrity of their "I". The inability to change something in the past, to start living again is annoying, one's own shortcomings and failures seem to be the result of unfavorable circumstances, and approaching the last frontier of life causes despair.
Erickson's age periodization is a theory of psychosocial personality development created by Eric Erickson, in which he describes 8 stages of personality development and focuses on the development of the "I-individual".
Erickson proposes periodization in the form of a table. What is this table?
- Period designation;
- The designation of social group, which puts forward the tasks of development, and in which a person improves (or else you can see a variant of the wording "radius of meaningful relationships");
- The task of development or that psychosocial crisis in which a person faces a choice;
- As a result of the passage of this crisis, he acquires either strong personality traits or, accordingly, weak ones.
Note that as a psychotherapist, Erickson can never be evaluative. He never talks about human qualities in good and bad format.
Personal qualities cannot be good or bad. But strong qualities he names those that help a person solve the problems of development. Weak he will call those who interfere. If a person has purchased weak qualities personality, the next choice is harder for him to make. But he never says that it is impossible. It's just harder;
Traits acquired as a result of conflict resolution are called virtues ("virtues").
The names of the virtues, in order of their gradual acquisition: hope, will, purpose, confidence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom.
Although Erickson tied his theory to chronological age, each stage depends not only on age-related changes in a person, but also on social factors: studying at school and college, having children, retiring, etc.
Infancy
From birth to a year is the first stage in which the foundations of a healthy personality are laid in the form of a general sense of trust.
The main condition for developing a sense of trust in people is the ability of a mother to organize the life of her small child in such a way that he has a sense of consistency, continuity and recognizability of experiences.
An infant with an established sense of basic trust perceives his environment as reliable and predictable. He can bear the absence of his mother without undue suffering and anxiety about "separating" from her. The main ritual is mutual recognition, which lasts all subsequent life and permeates all relationships with other people.
The ways of teaching trust or suspicion in different cultures do not coincide, but the principle itself is universal: a person trusts the world around him, based on the measure of trust in his mother. A feeling of distrust, fear and suspicion appears if the mother is unreliable, insolvent, rejects the child.
Distrust may increase if the child ceases to be the center of her life for the mother, when she returns to the activities she left earlier (resumes an interrupted career or gives birth to the next child).
Hope, as optimism in relation to one's cultural space, is the first positive quality Ego acquired as a result of successful conflict resolution trust/distrust.
Early childhood
The second stage lasts from one to three years and corresponds to the anal phase in the theory of Sigmund Freud. Biological maturation creates the basis for the emergence of independent actions of the child in a number of areas (move, wash, dress, eat). From Erickson's point of view, the collision of the child with the requirements and norms of society occurs not only when the child is accustomed to the potty, parents must gradually expand the possibilities of independent action and the realization of self-control in children.
Reasonable permissiveness contributes to the formation of the autonomy of the child.
In the case of constant excessive guardianship or high expectations, he experiences shame, doubt and self-doubt, humiliation, weak will.
An important mechanism at this stage is critical ritualization, based on concrete examples good and evil, good and bad, permitted and forbidden, beautiful and ugly. The identity of the child at this stage can be indicated by the formula: "I myself" and "I am what I can."
With a successful resolution of the conflict, the ego includes will, self-control, and with a negative outcome - weak will.
Playing age, preschool age
The third period is the "age of the game", from 3 to 6 years. Children begin to be interested in various work activities, try new things, contact with peers. At that time social world requires the child to be active, solve new problems and acquire new skills, he has additional responsibility for himself, for younger children and pets. This is the age when the main sense of identity becomes "I am what I will be".
There is a dramatic (play) component of the ritual, with the help of which the child recreates, corrects and learns to anticipate events.
Initiative is associated with the qualities of activity, enterprise and the desire to "attack" the task, experiencing the joy of independent movement and action. The child easily identifies with significant people, readily lends itself to training and education, focusing on a specific goal.
At this stage, as a result of the adoption of social norms and prohibitions, the Super-Ego is formed, new form self-restraint.
Parents, encouraging energetic and independent undertakings of the child, recognizing his rights to curiosity and imagination, contribute to the formation of initiative, expanding the boundaries of independence, and developing creative abilities.
Close adults who severely restrict freedom of choice, overly controlling and punishing children cause them too strong feeling guilt.
Guilt-ridden children are passive, constrained, and in the future they are not very capable of productive work.
School age
The fourth period corresponds to the age from 6 to 12 years and is chronologically similar to the latent period in Freud's theory. The rivalry with the parent of the same sex has already been overcome, the child is leaving the family and being introduced to the technological side of culture.
At this time, the child gets used to systematic learning, learns to win recognition by doing useful and necessary things.
The term "industriousness", "taste for work" reflects the main theme of this period, children at this time are absorbed in trying to find out what is obtained from what and how it works. The ego-identity of the child is now expressed as: "I am what I have learned." Studying at school, children are attached to the rules of conscious discipline, active participation. The school helps the child to develop a sense of hard work and achievement, thereby confirming a sense of personal strength. The ritual associated with school orders is the perfection of execution.
Having built in the early stages feelings of trust and hope, autonomy and "power of desire", initiative and purposefulness, the child must now learn everything that can prepare him for adult life.
The most important skills he must acquire are the aspects of socialization: cooperation, interdependence and a healthy sense of competition.
If a child is encouraged to make, needlework, cook, allowed to finish what he has begun, praised for the results, then he develops a sense of competence, "skill", confidence that he can master a new business, develop the ability to technical creativity.
If, on the other hand, parents or teachers see in the child's labor activity only pampering and an obstacle to "serious studies", then there is a danger of developing in him a feeling of inferiority and incompetence, doubts about his abilities or status among his peers. At this stage, the child may develop an inferiority complex if the expectations of adults are too high or too low.
The question to be answered at this stage is: Am I capable?
Youth
The fifth stage in Erickson's 12 to 20 year life cycle is considered the most important period in human psychosocial development:
"Youth is the age of the final establishment of a dominant positive identity.
It is then that the future, within foreseeable limits, becomes part of the conscious plan of life." This is the second important attempt at developing autonomy, and it requires challenging parental and social norms.
The adolescent is faced with new social roles and their associated demands. Teenagers evaluate the world and attitude to it. They think about the ideal family, religion, social structure peace.
There is a spontaneous search for new answers to important questions: Who is he and who will he become? Is he a child or an adult? How does his ethnicity, race, and religion affect people's attitudes towards him? What will be his true identity, his true identity as an adult?
Such questions often cause the adolescent to become morbidly concerned about what others think of him and what he should think of himself. Ritualization becomes improvisational, it highlights the ideological aspect. Ideology provides young people with simplified but clear answers to the main questions related to identity conflict.
The task of a teenager is to put together all the knowledge about himself available by this time (what kind of sons or daughters they are, students, athletes, musicians, etc.) and create a single image of himself (ego-identity), including awareness of both the past and the expected future.
The transition from childhood to adulthood causes both physiological and psychological changes.
Psychological changes manifest as an internal struggle between the desire for independence, on the one hand, and the desire to remain dependent on those people who care about you, the desire to be free from responsibility for being an adult, on the other. Faced with such confusion about their status, a teenager is always looking for confidence, security, striving to be like other teenagers in his age group. He develops stereotyped behavior and ideals. Groups of "peers" are very important for the restoration of self-identity. The destruction of strictness in dress and behavior is inherent in this period.
The positive quality associated with a successful exit from the crisis of the period of adolescence is loyalty to oneself, the ability to make one's own choice, find a way in life and remain true to one's obligations, accept social principles and stick to them.
Sharp social change, dissatisfaction with generally accepted values, Erickson sees as a factor hindering the development of identity, contributing to a sense of uncertainty and inability to choose a career or continue education. A negative way out of the crisis is expressed in poor self-identity, a sense of worthlessness, mental discord and aimlessness, sometimes teenagers rush towards delinquent behavior. Excessive identification with stereotyped heroes or representatives of the counterculture suppresses and limits the development of identity.
Youth
The sixth psychosocial stage lasts from 20 to 25 years and marks the formal beginning of adulthood. In general, this is the period of obtaining a profession, courtship, early marriage, the beginning of an independent family life.
Intimacy (achieving intimacy) - as maintaining reciprocity in relationships, merging with the identity of another person without fear of losing oneself.
Ability to be involved in love relationship includes all previous development tasks:
- a person who does not trust others will find it difficult to trust himself;
- in case of doubt and uncertainty, it will be difficult to allow others to cross their borders;
- a person who feels inadequate will find it difficult to approach others and take the initiative;
- the lack of diligence will lead to inertia in relationships, and a lack of understanding of one's place in society will lead to mental discord.
The capacity for intimacy is perfected when a person is able to build close partnerships, even if they require significant sacrifice and compromise.
The ability to trust and love another, to derive satisfaction from a mature sexual experience, to find compromises in common goals - all this indicates a satisfactory development at the stage of youth.
The positive quality that is associated with the normal way out of the intimacy/isolation crisis is love. Erickson emphasizes the importance of the romantic, erotic, sexual components, but considers true love and intimacy is wider - as the ability to entrust oneself to another person and remain true to this relationship, even if they require concessions or self-denial, the willingness to share all difficulties together. This type of love is manifested in a relationship of mutual care, respect and responsibility for another person.
The danger of this stage is the avoidance of situations and contacts that lead to intimacy.
Avoiding the experience of intimacy for fear of "losing independence" leads to self-isolation. Failure to establish calm and trusting personal relationships leads to feelings of loneliness, social vacuum and isolation.
Question to which they answer: Can I have an intimate relationship?
Maturity
The seventh stage falls on the middle years of life from 26 to 64 years, its main problem is the choice between productivity (generativity) and inertness (stagnation). An important point this stage is creative self-realization.
"Mature adulthood" brings a more coherent, less unstable sense of self.
"I" manifests itself, giving more return in human relationships: at home, at work and in society. There is already a profession, children have become teenagers. The sense of responsibility for oneself, others and the world becomes deeper.
In general, this stage includes a productive work life and a nurturing parenting style. The ability to be interested in universal human values, the fate of other people, to think about future generations and the future structure of the world and society is developing.
Productivity appears as the concern of the older generation for those who will replace them - about how to help them establish themselves in life and choose the right direction.
If adults have the ability to productive activity is so pronounced that it prevails over inertia, then the positive quality of this stage is manifested - care.
Difficulties in "productivity" may include: obsessive desire for pseudo-intimacy, over-identification with the child, the desire to protest as a way to resolve stagnation, unwillingness to let go of one's own children, impoverishment of one's personal life, self-absorption.
Those adults who fail to become productive gradually move into a state of self-absorption, when the main concern is their own, personal needs and comforts. These people do not care about anyone or anything, they only indulge their desires. With the loss of productivity, the functioning of the individual as an active member of society ceases, life turns into the satisfaction of one's own needs, and interpersonal relationships become impoverished.
This phenomenon, like a midlife crisis, is expressed in a sense of hopelessness and meaninglessness of life.
Questions to be answered: What does my life mean to today? What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
Old age
The eighth stage, old age, starting after 60-65 years, is a conflict of wholeness and hopelessness. At the climax, healthy self-development reaches wholeness. This implies accepting yourself and your role in life at the deepest level and understanding your own personal dignity, wisdom. The main work in life is over, it is time for reflection and fun with the grandchildren.
A person who lacks integrity often wants to live their life over again.
He may consider his life as too short to fully achieve certain goals and therefore he may experience hopelessness and discontent, experience despair because life did not work out, and it is too late to start all over again, there is a feeling of hopelessness and fear of death.
Literature and sources
https://www.psysovet.ru
Erikson's book Childhood and Society (Erikson, 1963) presents his "eight ages of man" model. According to Erickson, all people in their development go through eight crises, or conflicts. Psychosocial adaptation, achieved by a person at each stage of development, at a later age can change its character, sometimes radically. For example, children who were deprived of love and warmth in infancy may become normal adults if additional attention was given to them in later stages. However, the nature of psychosocial adaptation to conflicts plays important role in the development of the individual. The resolution of these conflicts is cumulative, and how a person adjusts to life at each stage of development influences how they deal with the next conflict.
According to Erickson's theory, specific developmental conflicts become critical only at certain points in the life cycle. At each of the eight stages of personality development, one of the developmental tasks, or one of these conflicts, becomes more important than others. However, despite the fact that each of the conflicts is critical only at one of the stages, it is present throughout life. For example, the need for autonomy is especially important for children aged 1 to 3 years, but throughout life people must constantly check the degree of their independence, which they can show each time they enter into new relationships with other people. The stages of development given below are represented by their poles. In fact, no one becomes completely trusting or distrustful: in fact, people vary in their degree of trust or distrust throughout their lives.
| Psychosocial stage | The Subject of Development Conflict | social conditions | Psychosocial outcome | |
| Stage 1 (birth to 1 year) | Oral-sensory | Can I trust the world? | Confidence Mistrust |
|
| Stage 2 (2 to 3 years old) | Musculo-anal | Can I control my own behavior? | Autonomy Doubt |
|
| Stage 3 (4 to 5 years old) | Locomotor-genital | Can I become independent from my parents and explore my limits? | Initiative | |
| Stage 4 (6 to 11 years old) | Latent | Can I become skilled enough to survive and adapt to the world? | industriousness Feelings of inferiority |
|
| Stage 5 (12 to 18 years old) | Adolescence and youth | Who am I? What are my beliefs, views and positions? | Identity Role confusion |
|
| Stage 6 (early adulthood) | Youth | Can I give myself completely to another person? | Proximity Insulation |
|
| Stage 7 (adulthood) | Adulthood | What can I offer future generations? | generativity Stagnation |
|
| Stage 8 (maturity) | Maturity | Am I satisfied with my life? | ego integrity Despair |
1. Trust or distrust.
By the way they are cared for in infancy, children learn whether the world around them is trustworthy. If their needs are met, if they are treated with attention and care and treated fairly consistently, toddlers develop a general impression of the world as a safe and trustworthy place. On the other hand, if their world is conflicting, hurting them, stressing them, and threatening their safety, then children learn to expect this from life and see it as unpredictable and untrustworthy.
2. Autonomy or shame and doubt.
Starting to walk, children discover the possibilities of their body and ways to control it. They learn to eat and dress, use the toilet and learn new ways to get around. When a child manages to do something on his own, he gains a sense of self-control and self-confidence. But if a child constantly fails and is punished for it or called sloppy, dirty, incapable, bad, he gets used to feeling shame and self-doubt.
3. Initiative or guilt.
Children aged 4-5 take their exploratory activity outside of their own bodies. They learn how the world works and how you can influence it. The world for them consists of both real and imaginary people and things. If their research activities are generally effective, they learn to deal with people and things in a constructive way and gain a strong sense of initiative. However, if they are severely criticized or punished, they get used to feeling guilty for many of their actions.
4. Industriousness or feeling of inferiority.
Between the ages of 6 and 11, children develop numerous skills and abilities at school, at home and among their peers. According to Erickson's theory, the sense of "I" is greatly enriched with a realistic increase in the child's competence in various areas. All greater value gains self-comparison with peers. During this period, negative evaluation of oneself in comparison with others causes especially strong harm.
5. Identity or confusion of roles.
Before adolescence, children learn a range of different roles - student or friend, older brother or sister, sports or music school etc. In adolescence and youth, it is important to understand these different roles and integrate them into one holistic identity. Boys and girls are looking for basic values and attitudes that cover all these roles. If they fail to integrate a core identity or resolve a serious conflict between two important roles with opposing value systems, the result is what Erickson calls identity diffusion.
6. Proximity or isolation.
In late adolescence and early adulthood, the central conflict of development is the conflict between intimacy and isolation. In Erickson's description, intimacy includes more than sexual intimacy. It is the ability to give a part of yourself to another person of any gender without fear of losing your own identity. Success in establishing this kind of close relationship depends on how the five previous conflicts were resolved.
7. Generativity or stagnation.
In adulthood, after previous conflicts are partially resolved, men and women can pay more attention and help other people. Parents sometimes find themselves helping their children. Some people can direct their energy towards solving social problems without conflict. But failure to resolve previous conflicts often leads to excessive preoccupation with oneself: one’s health, the desire to satisfy one’s psychological needs without fail, preserve one’s peace, etc.
8. Ego integrity or despair.
In the last stages of life, people usually review the life they have lived and evaluate it in a new way. If a person, looking back at his life, is satisfied because it was filled with meaning and active participation in events, then he comes to the conclusion that he did not live in vain and fully realized what was given to him by fate. Then he accepts his life as a whole, as it is. But if life seems to him a waste of energy and a series of missed opportunities, he has a feeling of despair. Obviously, this or that resolution of this last conflict in a person's life depends on the cumulative experience gained in the course of resolving all previous conflicts.
The stages of development identified by Erickson extend to the inner drives of the individual and to the relationship of parents and other members of society to these forces. In addition, Erickson considers these stages as periods of life during which the life experience acquired by the individual dictates to him the need for the most important adaptations to the social environment and changes in his own personality. Although the way in which an individual resolves these conflicts is influenced by the attitudes of his parents, the social environment also has an exceptionally large influence.
GOU VPO Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation
"IZHEVSK STATE MEDICAL ACADEMY"
FACULTY OF HIGHER NURSING EDUCATION
CHAIR OF PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANITIES
COURSE WORK ON AGE PSYCHOLOGY
"PERIODIZATION OF CHILDHOOD ACCORDING TO E. ERICKSON"
Introduction
The development of the psyche of the human individual is a conditioned and at the same time an active self-regulating process, it is an internally necessary movement, “self-movement” from lower to higher levels life, in which external circumstances, training and education always act through internal conditions; with age, the role of the individual's own activity in his mental development, in shaping him as a personality gradually increases.
Ontogenesis human psyche is staged.
The sequence of its stages is irreversible and predictable.
Phylogeny determines ontogenesis by creating the natural prerequisites and social conditions necessary for it.
A person is born with the natural possibilities of human mental development, which are realized in the social conditions of his life with the help of means created by society.
Accordingly, some theorists have proposed a stage model for understanding the phases of growth and development in human life. An example is the concept of eight stages of ego development, formulated by Erickson E.
Erik Erickson's epigenetic theory of personality development
Erik Erickson's theory arose from the practice of psychoanalysis. As E. Erickson himself admitted, in post-war America, where he lived after emigrating from Europe, such phenomena as anxiety in young children, apathy among Indians, confusion among war veterans, cruelty among the Nazis required explanation and correction. In all these phenomena, the psychoanalytic method reveals the conflict, and the works of Z. Freud made the neurotic conflict the most studied aspect. human behavior. E. Erickson, however, does not believe that the listed mass phenomena are only analogues of neuroses. In his opinion, the foundations of the human "I" are rooted in the social organization of society. Erickson's theory is also called epigenetic theory personal development (epi from the Greek - above, after, + genesis- development). Erickson, without abandoning the foundations of psychoanalysis, developed the idea of the leading role of social conditions, society in the development of a person's ideas about his Self.
E. Erickson created a psychoanalytic concept about the relationship between "I" and society. At the same time, his concept is the concept of childhood. It is human nature to have a long childhood. Moreover, the development of society leads to a lengthening of childhood. “Long childhood makes a person a virtuoso in the technical and intellectual senses, but it also leaves a trace of emotional immaturity in him for life,” wrote E. Erickson.
The formation of ego-identity, or the integrity of a person, continues throughout a person’s life and goes through a number of stages, moreover, the stages of Z. Freud are not rejected by E. Erickson, but become more complicated and, as it were, re-interpreted from the perspective of a new historical time. Erickson described eight crises in the development of the ego (I) - the identity of a person and, in this way, presented his picture of the periodization of the human life cycle.
Table 1. Stages of a person's life path according to E. Erickson
Each stage of the life cycle is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society. Society also determines the content of development at different stages of the life cycle. However, the solution of the problem, according to E. Erickson, depends both on the already achieved level of psychomotor development of the individual, and on the general spiritual atmosphere of the society in which this individual lives.
Task infant age - the formation of basic trust in the world, overcoming feelings of disunity and alienation. Task early age - the struggle against a sense of shame and strong doubt in one's actions for one's own independence and independence. Task gaming age - the development of an active initiative and at the same time experiencing a sense of guilt and moral responsibility for one's desires. IN school period rises new task- the formation of industriousness and the ability to handle tools, which is opposed by the awareness of one's own ineptitude and uselessness. IN adolescence and early youthful age, the task of the first integral awareness of oneself and one's place in the world appears; the negative pole in solving this problem is the uncertainty in understanding one's own "I" ("diffusion of identity"). end task youth and early adulthood- search for a life partner and the establishment of close friendships that overcome the feeling of loneliness. Task mature period - the struggle of the creative forces of man against inertia and stagnation. Period old age characterized by the formation of the final integral idea of oneself, one's life path as opposed to possible disappointment in life and growing despair
Psychoanalytic practice convinced E. Erickson that the development of life experience is carried out on the basis of primary bodily child's impressions. That is why this great importance he attached to the concepts "organ mode" and "modality of behavior". The concept of "organ mode" is defined by E. Erickson following Z. Freud as a zone of concentration of sexual energy. The organ with which sexual energy is connected at a particular stage of development creates a certain mode of development, that is, the formation of the dominant quality of the personality. According to the erogenous zones, there are modes of retraction, retention, intrusion and inclusion. Zones and their modes, emphasizes E. Erickson, are at the center of attention of any cultural system of raising children, which attaches importance to the child's early bodily experience. Unlike Z. Freud, for E. Erikson the mode of an organ is only the primary soil, the impetus for mental development. When society, through its various institutions (family, school, etc.), gives a special meaning to this mode, then its meaning is “alienated”, detached from the organ and transformed into a modality of behavior. In this way, through modes, a link is made between psychosexual and psychosocial development.
The peculiarity of modes, due to the mind of nature, is that another object or person is necessary for their functioning. So, in the first days of life, the child “lives and loves through the mouth”, and the mother “lives and loves through her breasts”. In the act of feeding, the child receives the first experience of reciprocity: his ability to "receive through the mouth" meets with a response from the mother.
First stage (oral-sensory) It should be emphasized that for E. Erickson, it is not the oral zone that is important, but the oral mode of interaction, which consists not only in the ability to “receive through the mouth”, but also through all sensory zones. For E. Erikson, the mouth is the focus of the child's relationship to the world only at the very first stages of its development. The modus of the organ - "receive" - breaks away from the zone of its origin and spreads to other sensory sensations (tactile, visual, auditory, etc.), and as a result of this, a mental modality of behavior is formed - "take in".
Like Z. Freud, E. Erikson connects the second phase of infancy with teething. From this point on, the ability to "take in" becomes more active and directed. It is characterized by the "biting" mode. Being alienated, the modus manifests itself in all types of activity of the child, displacing passive receiving. “The eyes, initially ready to receive impressions as they come naturally, learn to focus, isolate and “snatch” objects from a more vague background, to follow them. Similarly, the ears learn to recognize significant sounds, localize them, and control the search turn towards them, just as the arms learn to purposefully reach out and the hands to grip tightly. As a result of the distribution of the modality to all sensory zones, a social modality of behavior is formed - “taking and holding things”. It manifests itself when the child learns to sit. All these achievements lead to the child singling out himself as a separate individual.
The formation of this first form of ego-identity, like all subsequent ones, is accompanied by a developmental crisis. His indicators at the end of the first year of life: general tension due to teething, increased awareness of himself as a separate individual, weakening of the mother-child dyad as a result of the mother's return to professional pursuits and personal interests. This crisis is more easily overcome if, by the end of the first year of life, the ratio between the child's basic trust in the world and the basic distrust is in favor of the first. Signs of social trust in an infant are light feeding, deep sleep, normal bowel movements. The first social achievements, according to E. Erickson, also include the willingness of the child to let the mother disappear from sight without excessive anxiety or anger, since her existence has become an inner certainty, and her reappearance is predictable. It is this constancy, continuity and identity of life experience that forms in the young child a rudimentary sense of his own identity.
The dynamics of the relationship between trust and distrust of the world, or, in the words of E. Erickson, “the amount of faith and hope learned from the first life experience”, is determined not by the characteristics of feeding, but by the quality of child care, the presence of maternal love and tenderness, manifested in caring for the baby. An important condition for this is the mother's confidence in her actions. “A mother creates a sense of faith in her child by a type of treatment that combines sensitive concern for the needs of the child with hard feeling complete personal trust in him within the framework of the life style that exists in her culture,” emphasized E. Erickson.
