Erik Erikson Essay Research Paper Erik Homberger

Erik Erikson Essay, Research Paper

Erik Homberger Erikson was born in 1902 near Frankfort, Germany to Danish parents. Erik studied art and a assortment of linguistic communications during his school old ages, instead than scientific discipline classs such as biological science and chemical science. He did non prefer the ambiance that formal schooling produced so alternatively of traveling to college he traveled around Europe, maintaining a journal of his experiences. After a twelvemonth of making this, he returned to Germany and enrolled in art school. After several old ages, Erickson began to learn art and other topics to kids of Americans who had come to Vienna for Freudian preparation. He was so admitted into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1933 he came to the U.S. and became Boston & # 8217 ; s first child analyst and obtained a place at the Hayvard Medical School. Later on, he besides held places at establishments including Yale, Berkeley, and the Menninger Foundation. Erickson so returned to California to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto and subsequently the Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco, where he was a clinician and psychiatric adviser.

Erickson & # 8217 ; s involvements were spread over a broad country. He studied combat crises in troubled American soldiers in World War II, child-rearing patterns among the Sioux in South Dakota and the Yurok along the Pacific Coast, the drama of disturbed and normal kids, the conversations of troubled stripling enduring individuality crises, and societal behaviour in India. Erickson was besides invariably concerned with the rapid societal alterations in America and wrote about issues such as the coevals spread, racial tensenesss, juvenile delinquency, altering sexual functions, and the dangers of atomic war. Erikson proposed that people grow through sing a series of crises. They must accomplish trust, liberty, inaugural, competency, their ain individuality, productiveness, unity, and credence.

& # 8220 ; Erikson & # 8217 ; s chief part was to bridge the spread between the theories of depth psychology on the jobs of human development, which emphasize private emotions, and the broader societal influences that bear upon the person. He was a strong advocate of the construct that societal environment plays a major function in the development of personality. Traveling beyond the of a kid & # 8217 ; s early life, Erikson concentrated on broader issues of peer civilization, school environment, and cultural values and ideals. This led him to analyze the period of adolescence, in which he documented the interaction of a individual & # 8217 ; s interior feelings and urges with the universe that surrounds the person. & # 8221 ;

Erikson developed eight phases of human development. Briefly I would depict all eight my I will concentrate on phases five and six which are adolescence and immature maturity. Myer describes the phases in the undermentioned mode. Stage one occurs during the first twelvemonth This phase is called babyhood ( trust vs. misgiving ) during this phase if demands are faithfully met, babies develop a sense of basic trust. The 2nd phase is called the yearling phase ( autonomy vs. shame and uncertainty ) . This phase occurs while the babe is two old ages old, in this phase toddlers learn to exert will make things for themselves, or they doubt their abilities. The 3rd phase is called the kindergartner between the ages of three and five ( enterprise vs. guilt ) . During this phase preschoolers learn to originate undertakings and carry out programs, or they feel guilty about attempts to be independent. The 4th phase is called the simple school phase ( competency vs. lower status ) from the ages of six through pubescence. During this phase kids learn the pleasance of using themselves to undertakings, or they feel inferior.

In the 5th phase is the adolescence phase ( individuality vs. function confusion ) this phase occurs during the ages of 13 old ages into mid-twentiess. The 6th phase is called immature maturity ( familiarity vs. isolation ) during the ages of around 21 through 40 immature grownups struggle to organize close relationships and to derive capacity for confidant love, or they feel socially isolated. The 7th phase is called in-between maturity ( generativity vs. stagnancy ) during the ages of 41 through approximately 60 the middle-aged discover a sense of lending to the universe, such as through household and work, or they may experience a deficiency of intent. During late maturity ages 60 and up, ( unity vs. desperation ) during this phase when reflecting on his or her life, the older grownup may experience a sense of satisfaction or failure.

Harmonizing to Dr. C. George Boeree & # 8220 ; Erikson is a Freudian ego-psychologist. This means that he accepts Freud & # 8217 ; s thoughts as fundamentally right, including the more problematic thoughts such as the Oedipal composite, and accepts every bit good the thoughts about the self-importance that were added by other Freudian stalwart such as Heinz Hartmann and, of class, Anna Freud. However, Erikson is much more society and culture- oriented than most Freudians, as you might demur from person with his anthropological involvement, and he frequently pushes the inherent aptitudes and the unconscious practically out of the image. Possibly because of this, Erikson is popular among Freudians and non-Freudians alike. & # 8221 ;

& # 8220 ; Harmonizing to Erikson, personality develops in stairss determined by human being & # 8217 ; s preparedness to travel toward, to be cognizant of, and to interact with a widening societal universe & # 8211 ; a universe that begins with a subdued image of female parent and ends with an image of humankind. & # 8221 ; Erikson & # 8217 ; s phases are really interesting ; phases five and six are traveling to be describe in item in my paper.

Phase five is adolescence, get downing with pubescence and stoping about 18 or 20 old ages old. The undertaking during adolescence is to accomplish self-importance individuality and avoid function confusion. It was adolescence that interested Erikson foremost and most, and the forms he saw here were the bases for his believing about all the other phases. Ego individuality means cognizing whom you are and how you fit in to the remainder of the society. It requires that you take all you & # 8217 ; ve learned about life and model it into a incorporate self-image, one that your community finds meaningful.

There are a figure of things that make things easier: First, we

should hold a mainstream grownup civilization that is worthy of the adolescent’s regard, one with good grownup function theoretical accounts and unfastened lines of communicating. Further, society should supply clear rites of transition, certain achievements and rites that help to separate the grownup from the kid. In crude and traditional societies, an adolescent male child may be asked to go forth the small town for a period of clip to populate on his ain, run some symbolic animate being, or seek an inspirational vision. Boys and misss may be required to travel through certain trial of endurance, symbolic ceremonials, or educational events. In one manner or another, the differentiation between the powerless, but irresponsible, clip of childhood and the powerful and responsible clip of maturity, is made clear. Without these things, we are likely to see function confusion, intending an uncertainness about one’s topographic point in society and the universe these things. When an stripling is confronted by function confusion, Erikson said he or she is enduring from an individuality crisis. In fact, a common inquiry striplings in our society ask is a straight-forward inquiry of individuality: “Who am I? ”

One of Erikson & # 8217 ; s suggestions for adolescence in our society is the psychosocial moratorium. He suggests you take a small & # 8220 ; time-out & # 8221 ; . If you have money, go to Europe. There is such a thing as excessively much & # 8220 ; ego individuality & # 8221 ; , where a individual is so involved in a peculiar function in a peculiar society or subculture that there is no room left for tolerance. Erikson calls this maladaptive inclination fanatism. A overzealous believes that his manner is the lone manner. Adolescents are of class known for their idealism, and for their inclination to see things in black-and-white. These people will garner other around them and advance their beliefs and life manners with respect to others & # 8217 ; rights to differ. The deficiency of individuality is possibly more hard still, and Erikson refers to the malignant inclination here as renunciation. They repudiate their member in the universe of grownups and, even more, they repudiate their demand for an individuality. Some striplings allow themselves to & # 8220 ; fuse & # 8221 ; with a group, particularly the sort of group that is peculiarly eager to supply the inside informations of your individuality: spiritual cults, militaristic organisations, groups founded on hatred, groups that have divorced themselves from the painful demands of mainstream society. They become involved in destructive activities, drugs, or intoxicant, or you may retreat into their ain psychotic phantasies. After all, being & # 8220 ; bad & # 8221 ; or & # 8220 ; cipher & # 8221 ; is better than non cognizing who you are. If one successfully negotiates this phase, one will hold virtuousness Erikson called fidelity. Fidelity means trueness, the ability to populate by society criterions despite their imperfectnesss and rawness and incompatibilities. & # 8220 ; For striplings non merely assist one another temporarily through much uncomfortableness by organizing coteries and by pigeonholing themselves, their ideals, and their enemies ; they besides perversely test each other & # 8217 ; s capacity to plight fidelity & # 8221 ;

Phase six is immature maturity, which last from approximately 18 to about 30. The ages in the grownup phases are much fuzzier than in the childhood phases, and people may differ dramatically. The undertaking is to accomplish some grade of familiarity, as opposes to staying in isolation. Intimacy is the ability to be near to others, as a lover, a friend, and as a participant in society. Because one has a clear sense of which 1 is, one no longer necessitate to fear & # 8220 ; losing & # 8221 ; oneself, as many striplings do. The & # 8220 ; fright of committedness & # 8221 ; some people seem to exhibit is an illustration of immatureness in this phase. This fright International Relations and Security Network & # 8217 ; t ever so obvious. Many people today are ever seting off the advancement of their relationships. Neither should the immature grownup demand to turn out him- or herself any longer. A teenage relationship is frequently a affair of seeking to set up individuality through & # 8220 ; couple-hood & # 8221 ; Who am I? I & # 8217 ; m his miss friend. The immature grownup relationship should be a affair of two independent self-importances desiring to make something larger than themselves. We intuitively recognize this when we frown on a relationship between a immature grownup and a adolescent: We see the potency for use of the younger member of the party by the older. Our society hasn & # 8217 ; t done much for immature grownup, either. The accent on callings, the isolation of urban life, the dividing apart of relationships because of our demand for mobility, and the general impersonal nature of modern life prevent people from of course developing their confidant relationships. Erikson calls the maladaptive signifier promiscuousness, mentioning peculiarly to the inclination to go adumbrate excessively free, excessively easy, and without any deepness to 1s familiarity. The malignance he name exclusion, which refers to the inclination to insulate from love, friendly relationship and community, and to develop a certain obnoxiousness in compensation for one & # 8217 ; s solitariness. If one gets through this phase Erikson believes that one has the psychosocial strength to love. & # 8220 ; A human being should be potentially able to carry through mutualness of venereal climax, but he should besides be so established as to bear a certain sum of defeat in the affair without undue arrested development wherever emotional penchant or considerations of responsibility and trueness call for it & # 8221 ;

Erikson left the field of psychological science with great accomplishments he was a great author a great physician and a great adult male. He left behind a great bequest. & # 8220 ; If the relation of male parent and boy dominated the last century, so this one is concerned with the self-made adult male inquiring himself what he is doing of himself. & # 8221 ; & # 8211 ; Erik H. Erikson, 1964

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Mentions

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Hypertext transfer protocol: //www.ship.edu/-cgboeree/erikson.html

Hypertext transfer protocol: //www.ship.edu/-cgboeree/persinto.html

Erikson H. E. , Childhood and Society ( 1963 )

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Hall E, Lamb M, Perlmutter M. , Child Psychology Today 2nd ED. ( 1986 ) pg. 22-25

Hypertext transfer protocol: //www.geocities.com/heartland/6245/Erikson.html

Myer D. , Exploring Psychology 3rd ED. ( 1996 ) pg. 93-96