Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development

Erikson

According to Erik Erickson's theory of psychosocial development, there are eight stages through which an individual should pass in the development from infancy through adulthood. If someone does not achieve the goal of a particular stage, s/he will be unable to move past it and will suffer the consequences for life. The goal of a stage is considered a personality trait; failure to reach the goal is considered to be the lack of a trait. For example, the final stage in Erikson's construct is "integrity vs. despair." A person who reaches that stage successfully is said to have integrity, while one who is not successful does not. Erikson referred to each stage as a "crisis." He did not use the word in the pejorative sense, but rather to express the idea of a turning point in one's life (Atalay, 2007, p. 16). In the sad case study of the four-year-old girl, she is unlikely to reach this eighth and final stage in Erikson's scheme. Because of her circumstances at home, she is still in the first stage, trust vs. mistrust. She has learned that she cannot trust her mother to meet her most basic emotional needs and thus she is "stuck" at the lowest level of psychosocial development.

The four-year-old, whom we shall call "Sally," is not secure in her mother's love. The mother is poorly equipped to raise an emotionally healthy child. She was herself abused as a child and did not progress successfully through Erikson's eight stages. She may not have had any role models of healthy, loving parent-child relationships. She is an insecure adult who seeks the love she never had through a succession of men, some of whom treat her badly. Although she would probably say that she does not like or seek the abuse, it is nevertheless a pattern with which she feels comfortable because of her childhood. Her issues with alcohol exacerbate the situation, clouding her judgment, altering her mood, and making her even more vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy. The mother is Sally's role model for adult relationships.

Markstrom and Kalmanir (2001) argued that fidelity and love are "ego virtues" that emerge from the successful psychosocial stage resolutions of identity and intimacy. Although their study was limited, with a sample population of middle-class college students, they believed their work supported Erikson's theories. Unfortunately for Sally, it does not appear that her mother resolved this stage; she may not even have resolved the first stage. It is unlikely that Sally will approach the stages of identity and intimacy and, unless there are major changes in Sally's circumstances, there is a strong possibility she will repeat her mother's patterns. Not enough information is provided in Sally's case history to determine the nature of other influences in her life, if any. From the information given, it would seem that Sally and her mother are on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. The mother may lack steady employment. The mother and daughter probably live in relative isolation except for the men who come and go in their lives. Judging from the behaviors Sally displays at preschool, she has not developed good play skills and interacts poorly with other children. She is desperate for love and attention but because of the abuse from her mother and the patterns of abuse she witnesses, she only knows how to ask for love and attention in negative ways from her peers.