Psycho-Social Stages of Development

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Psycho-Social Stages of Development

Erik Eriksen discusses the different stages of development and through these stages of development we clearly see how people develop from the time they are young up to the time they are old and the different qualities they develop along the way (Cherry, 2020). For example, when a person is an infant, they either get trust or mistrust depending on the environment whereby they grow up in. this paper discusses the psychosocial stages of development as well as how they affect a person’s life and a possible addition to the psychosocial development.

Erik Eriksen came up with 8 stages of development and they include conflicts like; trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus role confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation and the last one is ego integrity versus despair. Of all these stages intimacy versus isolation occurs between 19-40 years while generativity versus stagnation occurs between 40 – 65 years (Cherry, 2020). Between these two there is a possibility of another stage which might be easily missed. That is between 30-45 years and this makes intimacy versus isolation period to be deducted 10 years while generativity versus stagnation is also deducted 5 years during its initial part.

This stage therefore can exist between 30-45 years and can be called the parenthood and work period. The major conflict in this stage can be the issue of balance versus imbalance which people experience in their lives at this stage. When a person is around 30 years its either they have made a decision whether they will have kids or not, that is if they do not have kids already. Therefore, there is always the struggle to balance work and family as well as studies if a person wants to go on with their studies. Sometimes people get overwhelmed and because of this some people find themselves focusing on family alone or work alone.

References

Cherry, K. (2020, June 26). Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. VeryWell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/erik-eriksons-stages-of-psychosocial-development-2795740

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