The result of a successful resolution of the crisis according to Erikson. Erikson's psychosocial theory of personality

The first stage of human development corresponds to the oral phase of classical psychoanalysis and usually covers the first year of life.

During this period, Erikson believes, a parameter of social interaction develops, the positive pole of which is trust, and the negative pole is distrust.

The degree of trust with which a child develops in the world around him, in other people and in himself, largely depends on the care shown to him. A baby who gets everything he wants, whose needs are quickly satisfied, who never feels sick for a long time, who is rocked and caressed, played with and talked to, feels that the world, in general, is a cozy place, and people are responsive and helpful creatures. . If a child does not receive proper care, does not encounter loving care, then distrust develops in him - fearfulness and suspicion towards the world in general, towards people in particular, and he carries this distrust with him into other stages of his development.

It must be emphasized, however, that the question of which principle will prevail is not resolved once and for all in the first year of life, but arises anew at each subsequent stage of development. This brings both hope and threat. A child who comes to school with a feeling of wariness may gradually develop confidence in a teacher who does not allow injustice towards children. In doing so, he can overcome the initial distrust. But on the other hand, a child who has developed a trusting approach to life in infancy may become distrustful of it at subsequent stages of development if, say, in the event of a parent’s divorce, an environment filled with mutual accusations and scandals is created in the family.

Independence and indecisiveness

The second stage covers the second and third years of life, coinciding with the anal phase of Freudianism. During this period, Erickson believes, the child develops independence based on the development of his motor and mental abilities. At this stage, the child masters various movements, learns not only to walk, but also to climb, open and close, push and pull, hold, release and throw. Kids enjoy and are proud of their new abilities and strive to do everything themselves: unwrap lollipops, get vitamins from a bottle, flush the toilet, etc. If parents allow the child to do what he is capable of, and do not rush him, the child develops a feeling that he controls his muscles, his impulses, himself and, to a large extent, his environment - that is, he gains independence.

But if educators show impatience and rush to do for the child what he himself is capable of, he develops shyness and indecisiveness. Of course, there are no parents who do not rush their child under any circumstances, but the child’s psyche is not so unstable as to react to rare events. Only if, in an effort to protect the child from effort, parents show constant zeal, unreasonably and tirelessly scolding him for “accidents”, be it a wet bed, soiled panties, a broken cup or spilled milk, does the child develop a feeling of shame in front of other people and lack of confidence in one’s ability to manage oneself and the environment.

If a child emerges from this stage with a great deal of uncertainty, this will adversely affect the independence of both the teenager and the adult in the future. Conversely, a child who takes away much more independence from this stage than shame and indecision will be well prepared to develop independence in the future. And again, the relationship between independence on the one hand, and shyness and uncertainty on the other, established at this stage, can be changed in one direction or another by subsequent events.

Entrepreneurship and guilt

The third stage usually occurs between four and five years of age. The preschooler has already acquired many physical skills; he can ride a tricycle, run, cut with a knife, and throw stones. He begins to invent activities for himself, and not just respond to the actions of other children or imitate them. His ingenuity manifests itself both in speech and in the ability to fantasize. The social dimension of this stage, says Erikson, develops between enterprise at one extreme and guilt at the other. How parents react to the child’s ideas at this stage largely determines which of these qualities will prevail in his character. Children who are given the initiative in choosing motor activities, who run, wrestle, tinker, ride a bicycle, sled, or skate at will, develop and consolidate their entrepreneurial spirit. It is also reinforced by the parents’ readiness to answer the child’s questions (intellectual entrepreneurship) and not interfere with his fantasizing and starting games. But if parents show the child that his motor activity is harmful and undesirable, that his questions are intrusive, and his games are stupid, he begins to feel guilty and carries this feeling of guilt into further stages of life.

Skill and Inferiority

Stage four - ages six to eleven years primary school. Classical psychoanalysis calls them the latent phase. During this period, the son's love for his mother and jealousy for his father (for girls, on the contrary) are still in a latent state. During this period, the child develops the ability for deduction, organized games and regulated activities. Only now, for example, are children properly learning to play pebbles and other games where they must take turns. Erickson says that the psychosocial dimension of this stage is characterized by skill on the one hand and feelings of inferiority on the other.

During this period, the child’s interest in how things work, how they can be mastered, adapted to something, intensifies. Robinson Crusoe is understandable and close to this age; In particular, the enthusiasm with which Robinson describes his activities in every detail corresponds to the child’s awakening interest in work skills. When children are encouraged to make anything, to build huts and airplane models, to cook, cook and do handicrafts, when they are allowed to finish what they start, praised and rewarded for their results, then the child develops skill and ability for technical creativity. On the contrary, parents who see nothing but “pampering” and “messing” in their children’s work activities contribute to the development of their feelings of inferiority.

At this age, however, the child’s environment is no longer limited to the home. Along with family important role other social institutions also begin to play a role in his age-related crises. Here Erikson again expands the scope of psychoanalysis, which until now only took into account the influence of parents on the child's development. A child’s stay at school and the attitude he encounters there has a great influence on the balance of his psyche. A child who lacks intelligence is especially likely to be traumatized by school, even if his diligence is encouraged at home. He is not so stupid that he gets into a school for mentally retarded children, but he learns the material more slowly than his peers and cannot compete with them. Continuous falling behind in class disproportionately develops his feelings of inferiority.

But a child whose inclination to make something has died out due to eternal ridicule at home can revive it at school thanks to the advice and help of a sensitive and experienced teacher. Thus, the development of this parameter depends not only on parents, but also on the attitude of other adults.

Identity and role confusion

During the transition to the fifth stage (12-18 years old), the child is faced, as classical psychoanalysis claims, with the awakening of “love and jealousy” for his parents. The successful solution of this problem depends on whether he finds the object of love in his own generation. Erickson does not deny that this problem occurs in adolescents, but points out that others exist. The teenager matures physiologically and mentally, and in addition to the new sensations and desires that appear as a result of this maturation, he develops new views on things, a new approach to life. An important place in the new features of the adolescent’s psyche is occupied by his interest in the thoughts of other people, in what they think about themselves. Teenagers can create for themselves a mental ideal of family, religion, society, in comparison with which far from perfect, but really existing families, religions and societies are very inferior. The teenager is able to develop or adopt theories and worldviews that promise to reconcile all contradictions and create a harmonious whole. In short, the teenager is an impatient idealist who believes that creating an ideal in practice is no more difficult than imagining it in theory.

Erikson believes that the parameter of connection with the environment that arises during this period fluctuates between the positive pole of identification of the “I” and the negative pole of role confusion. In other words, a teenager who has acquired the ability to generalize is faced with the task of combining everything that he knows about himself as a schoolchild, son, athlete, friend, boy scout, newspaperman, and so on. He must collect all these roles into a single whole, comprehend it, connect it with the past and project it into the future. If a young person successfully copes with this task of psychosocial identification, then he will have a sense of who he is, where he is and where he is going.

Unlike previous stages, where parents had a more or less direct influence on the outcome of developmental crises, their influence now turns out to be much more indirect. If, thanks to parents, a teenager has already developed trust, independence, enterprise and skill, then his chances of identification, that is, of recognizing his own individuality, increase significantly.

The opposite is true for a teenager who is distrustful, shy, insecure, filled with a sense of guilt and awareness of his inferiority. Therefore, preparation for comprehensive psychosocial identification in adolescence should begin, in fact, from the moment of birth.

If, due to an unsuccessful childhood or a difficult life, a teenager cannot solve the problem of identification and define his “I,” then he begins to show symptoms of role confusion and uncertainty in understanding who he is and what environment he belongs to. Such confusion is often observed among juvenile delinquents. Girls who show promiscuity in adolescence very often have a fragmented idea of ​​their personality and do not correlate their promiscuity with either their intellectual level or their value system. In some cases, young people strive for “negative identification,” that is, they identify their “I” with an image opposite to the one that parents and friends would like to see.

But sometimes it is better to identify yourself with a “hippie”, with a “juvenile delinquent”, even with a “drug addict”, than not to find your “I” at all.

However, anyone who does not acquire a clear idea of ​​his personality in adolescence is not doomed to remain restless for the rest of his life. And those who identified their “I” as a teenager will certainly encounter facts along the path of life that contradict or even threaten the idea they have about themselves. Perhaps Erickson, more than any other psychological theorist, emphasizes that life is a continuous change in all its aspects and that successfully solving problems at one stage does not guarantee a person freedom from the emergence of new problems at other stages of life or the emergence of new solutions for old ones that have already been solved seemed to be a problem.

Intimacy and loneliness

Sixth stage life cycle is the beginning of maturity - in other words, the period of courtship and early years family life, that is, from the end of adolescence to the beginning of middle age. Classical psychoanalysis does not say anything new or, in other words, anything important about this stage and the one that follows it. But Erickson, taking into account the identification of the “I” that has already occurred at the previous stage and the inclusion of a person in labor activity, indicates a parameter specific to this stage, which is located between the positive pole of intimacy and the negative pole of loneliness.

By intimacy, Erickson means more than just physical intimacy. In this concept he includes the ability to care for another person and share everything essential with him without fear of losing himself. With intimacy the situation is the same as with identification: success or failure at this stage does not depend directly on the parents, but only on how successfully the person has passed through the previous stages. Just like in the case of identification, social conditions can make it easier or more difficult to achieve intimacy. This concept is not necessarily related to sexual attraction, but extends to friendship. Between fellow soldiers who have fought side by side in difficult battles, such close bonds are often formed that can serve as an example of intimacy in the broadest sense of the concept. But if a person does not achieve intimacy either in marriage or in friendship, then, according to Erikson, his lot becomes loneliness - the state of a person who has no one to share his life with and no one to care about.

Universal humanity and self-absorption

Seventh stage- mature age, that is, already the period when children have become teenagers, and parents have firmly tied themselves to a certain type of occupation. At this stage, a new personality dimension appears with universal humanity at one end of the scale and self-absorption at the other.

Erickson calls universal humanity the ability of a person to be interested in the destinies of people outside family circle, think about the life of future generations, the forms of the future society and the structure of the future world. Such interest in new generations is not necessarily associated with having children of their own - it can exist in anyone who actively cares about young people and about making it easier for people to live and work in the future. Those who have not developed this sense of belonging to humanity focus on themselves and their main concern becomes the satisfaction of their needs and their own comfort.

Integrity and hopelessness

The eighth and final stage in Erikson's classification is the period when the main work of life has ended and the time of reflection and fun with grandchildren, if any, comes for the person. . The psychosocial parameter of this period lies between integrity and hopelessness. A feeling of wholeness and meaningfulness in life arises for those who, looking back on their lives, feel satisfaction. Anyone who sees their life as a chain of missed opportunities and annoying mistakes realizes that it is too late to start all over again and that what has been lost cannot be returned. Such a person is overcome by despair at the thought of how his life could have turned out, but did not work out.

Eight stages of personality development according to Erik Erikson in the table

Believing that the eight stages listed represent a universal feature human development, Erikson points out cultural differences in the ways of resolving problems inherent in each stage. He believes that in every culture there is a "crucial coordination" between the development of the individual and his social environment. We are talking about coordination, which he calls the “gear wheel of life cycles” - the law of coordinated development, according to which society provides support to a developing individual precisely when she especially urgently needs it. Thus, from Erikson's point of view, the needs and opportunities of generations are intertwined.

Ermolaeva.

E. Erikson's theory arose from the practice of psychoanalysis. Thus, the influence of culture and society on development was emphasized, rather than the influence of pleasure obtained from stimulation of erogenous zones. In his opinion, the foundations of the human self are rooted in the social organization of society.

E. Erikson was the first to use the psychohistorical method (the application of psychoanalysis to history), which required him to pay equal attention to both the psychology of the individual and the nature of the society in which the person lives.

According to E. Erikson, each stage of development has its own expectations inherent in a given society, which the individual can justify or not justify, and then he is either included in society or rejected by it. These considerations by E. Erikson formed the basis of the two most important concepts of his concept - “group identity” and “ego-identity”. Group identity is formed due to the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on his inclusion in a given social group - on the development of a worldview inherent in this group. Ego identity is formed in parallel with group identity and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his Self, despite the changes that occur to a person in the process of his growth and development.

The formation of self-identity, or, in other words, personality integrity, continues throughout a person’s life and goes through a number of stages. 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 to the problem, according to E. Erikson, 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 infancy- formation of basic trust in the world, overcoming feelings of disunity and alienation. Task early age- the fight against feelings of shame and strong doubt in one’s actions for one’s own independence and autonomy. The task of the playing age is to develop active initiative and at the same time experience feelings of guilt and moral responsibility for one’s desires. During the period of schooling, a new task arises - the formation of hard work and the ability to handle tools, which is countered by the awareness of one’s own ineptitude and uselessness. In adolescence and early adolescence, 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 uncertainty in understanding one’s own self (“diffusion of identity”). The task of the end of adolescence and the beginning of maturity is to find a life partner and establish close friendships that overcome the feeling of loneliness. The task of the mature period is the struggle of human creative forces against inertia and stagnation. The period of old age is characterized by the formation of a final, integral idea of ​​oneself, one’s life path, as opposed to possible disappointment in life and growing despair.

The solution to each of these problems, according to E. Erikson, comes down to establishing a certain dynamic relationship between the two extreme poles. Personal development is the result of the struggle of these extreme possibilities, which does not fade during the transition to the next stage of development. This struggle at a new stage of development is suppressed by the solution of a new, more urgent task, but incompleteness makes itself felt during periods of failure in life. The balance achieved at each stage marks the acquisition of a new form of ego-identity and opens up the possibility of inclusion of the subject in a wider social environment. When raising a child, we must not forget that “negative” feelings always exist and serve as dynamic counter members to “positive” feelings throughout life.

The transition from one form of self-identity to another causes identity crises. Crises, according to E. Erikson, are not a personality illness, not a manifestation of a neurotic disorder, but “turning points,” “moments of choice between progress and regression, integration and delay.”

E. Erikson’s book “Childhood and Society” presents his model of the “eight ages of man.” According to Erikson, all people in their development go through eight crises, or conflicts. The psychosocial adaptation achieved by a person at each stage of development can change its character at a later age, sometimes radically. For example, children who were deprived of love and warmth in infancy can become normal adults if they are given extra attention in later stages. However, the nature of psychosocial adaptation to conflict plays an important role in the development of a particular person. The resolution of these conflicts is cumulative, and the way a person copes with life at each stage of development influences how he copes with the next conflict.

According to Erikson'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 the 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 test the degree of autonomy they can exercise 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 their degree of trusting or distrusting throughout their lives.

As a result of the struggle between positive and negative tendencies in solving basic problems during epigenesis, the main “virtues of personality” are formed - the central new formations of age. Since positive qualities oppose negative ones, personality virtues have two poles - positive (in the case of solving the main social problem of age) and negative (in case of unsolved this problem).

Thus, basic faith against basic distrust gives rise to HOPE - DISTANCE; autonomy versus shame and doubt: WILL - IMPULSIVITY; initiative versus guilt: PURPOSE - APATHY; hard work versus feelings of inferiority: COMPETENCE - INERTIA; identity vs. diffusion of identity: LOYALTY - DENYING; intimacy versus loneliness: LOVE IS CLOSEDNESS; generation versus self-absorption: CARE - REJECTION; self-integration versus loss of interest in life: WISDOM - CONSPITURE.

1.Trust or distrust. 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: total voltage due to teething, increased awareness of oneself as a separate individual, weakening of the mother-child dyad as a result of the mother returning to professional activities 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 basic mistrust is in favor of the former.

2.Autonomy or shame and doubt. As children begin to walk, they discover the capabilities of their body and how to control it. They learn to eat and dress themselves, use the toilet, and learn new ways of moving. 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 doubt in his own abilities.

3. Initiative or guilt. Children aged 4-5 years transfer their research activity beyond their own bodies. They learn how the world works and how they 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 become accustomed to feeling guilty for many of their actions.

4. Hard work or feelings 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 Erikson's theory, the sense of self is significantly enriched with realistic growth in the child's competence

in different areas. Comparing oneself with one's peers is becoming increasingly important. During this period, negative assessment of oneself in comparison with others causes especially great harm.

5.Identity or role confusion. Before adolescence, children learn a number of different roles - student or friend, older sibling, sports or music student, etc. During adolescence and adolescence, it is important to understand these different roles and integrate them into one coherent 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 major conflict between two important roles with opposing value systems, the result is what Erikson calls identity diffusion.

The fifth stage in personality development is characterized by the deepest life crisis. Childhood is coming to an end. The completion of this large stage of life's journey is characterized by the formation of the first integral form of ego-identity. Three lines of development lead to this crisis: rapid physical growth and puberty(“physiological revolution”); concern about “how I look in the eyes of others”, “what I am”; the need to find one’s professional calling that meets acquired skills, individual abilities and the requirements of society. In an adolescent identity crisis, all past critical moments of development arise anew. The teenager must now solve all the old problems consciously and with the inner conviction that this is the choice that is significant for him and for society. Then social trust in the world, independence, initiative, and mastered skills will create a new integrity of the individual.

6. Intimacy or isolation. In late adolescence and early adulthood, a central developmental tension is the conflict between intimacy and isolation. In Erickson's description, intimacy involves more than just sexual intimacy. This 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 type of close relationship depends on how the five previous conflicts were resolved.

The interval between adolescence and adulthood, when a young person strives (through trial and error) to find his place in society, E. Erikson called “mental moratorium.” The severity of this crisis depends both on the degree of resolution of earlier crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.), and on the entire spiritual atmosphere of society. An unresolved crisis leads to a state of acute diffusion of identity and forms the basis of a special pathology of adolescence. Identity pathology syndrome, according to E. Erikson: regression to the infantile level and the desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible; a vague but persistent state of anxiety; feeling isolated and empty; constantly being in a state of something that can change life; fear of personal communication and inability to emotionally influence people of the other sex; hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles.

7.Generativeness or stagnation. In adulthood, after previous conflicts have been 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 to solving social problems without conflict. But failure to resolve previous conflicts often leads to excessive self-absorption: excessive preoccupation with one’s health, the desire to satisfy one’s psychological needs, to preserve one’s peace, etc.

8.Ego integrity or despair. In the last stages of life, people usually reconsider their lives.

And they evaluate it in a new way. If a person looks back on his life and feels satisfied because it was filled with meaning and active participation

in events, he comes to the conclusion that he did not live in vain and fully realized what fate had given him. Then he accepts his life entirely, as it is. But if life seems to him a waste of energy and a series of missed opportunities, he begins to feel despair. It is obvious that one or another resolution of this last conflict in a person’s life depends on the cumulative experience accumulated in the course of resolving all previous conflicts.

E. Erikson's concept is called the epigenetic concept of the individual's life path. As is known, the epigenetic principle is used in the study of embryonic development. According to this principle, everything that grows has a common plan. Based on this general

individual parts of the plan are developed. Moreover, each of them has the most favorable period for preferential development. This happens until all the parts, having developed, form a functional whole. Epigenetic concepts in biology emphasize the role of external factors in the emergence of new forms and structures and thereby oppose preformationist teachings. From the point of view of E. Erikson, the sequence of stages is the result of biological maturation, but the content of development is determined by what the society to which he belongs expects from a person. According to E. Erikson, any person can go through all these stages, no matter what culture he belongs to, it all depends on how long his life is.

The significance of E. Erikson’s concept lies in the fact that he was the first to characterize the stages of the entire life cycle and introduced later ages into the area of ​​interest of developmental psychology. He created a psychoanalytic concept about the relationship between the self and society and formulated a number of concepts of “group identity”, “ego-identity”, and “mental moratorium” that are important for practical psychology.

Sapogova.

In world psychology, the periodization of E. Erikson is widely used, who laid the basis for development of three processes at once: somatic development, social development and the development of the conscious self. He considers his theory of phases in five dimensions: 1) psychosocial crises; 2) circle of reference persons; 3) elements of social order; 4) psychosocial modalities; 5) psychosexual dynamics.

In E. Erikson’s periodization, 8 phases of development are distinguished: 1) the first phase (infancy, first year of life) is characterized by the child’s primary trust or distrust of the environment; 2) the second phase (early childhood: 2-3 years of life) is characterized by autonomy or shame and doubt; 3) the third phase (preschool age: 4-5 years of life) is characterized by initiative or a feeling of guilt; 4) the fourth phase (school age: from 6 to 11-12 years, i.e. until puberty) is characterized by a sense of value and hard work or little value; 5) the fifth phase (adolescence) is characterized by personal individuality, identity or diffusion of identity; 6) the sixth phase (youth: 20-30 years) is characterized by closeness, intimacy and solidarity or isolation; 7) the seventh phase (maturity: 30-40 years) is characterized by creativity, integrativeness or stagnation; 8) the eighth phase (adulthood (plus old age), from 40 years and older) is characterized by integrity of personality or duality, despair.

Psychoanalytic practice convinced E. Erikson that the development of life experience is carried out on the basis of the child’s primary bodily impressions. That is why he introduced the concepts of “organ mode” and “behavior modality”. “Organ mode” is a zone of concentration of sexual energy. The organ with which sexual energy is connected at a specific stage of development creates a certain mode of development, i.e. formation of a dominant personality quality. According to the erogenous zones, there are modes of retraction, retention, invasion and inclusion.

Zones and their modes, according to E. Erikson, are the focus of any cultural system of raising children. The mode of an organ is only the primary soil, the impetus for mental development. When society, through various institutions of socialization (family, school, etc.), gives a special meaning to a given mode, then “alienation” of its meaning occurs, separation from the organ and transformation into a modality of behavior. Thus, through modes, the connection between psychosexual and psychosocial development is realized.

Let's briefly look at the characteristics of the stages.

A. Infancy. Stage one: fundamental faith and hope versus fundamental hopelessness. The peculiarity of modes is that for their functioning another object or person is necessary. In the first days of life, the child “lives and loves through the mouth,” and the mother “lives and loves through the breast.” In the act of feeding, the child receives the first experience of reciprocity: his ability to “receive through the mouth” meets a response from the mother. Unlike Z. Freud, for E. Erikson it is not the oral zone itself that is important, but the oral method of interaction, which consists in the ability to “receive” not only through the mouth, but through all sensory zones. The mode of the organ - “receive” - is detached from the zone of its origin and spreads to other sensory sensations (tactile, visual, auditory, etc.), and as a result of this, the mental modality of behavior is formed - “to absorb”.

Like Z. Freud, E. Erikson associates the second phase of infancy with teething. From this moment on, the ability to absorb becomes more active and directed and is characterized by the “biting” mode. Alienating, the mode manifests itself in all types of activity of the child, displacing passive receiving (“to absorb”).

The eyes, initially ready to receive impressions as they come naturally, learn to focus, isolate and snatch objects from the background, and follow them. The ears learn to recognize significant sounds, localize them and control the search rotation towards them. The arms learn to purposefully stretch out and the hands to grasp. As a result of the spread of the mode to all sensory zones, a social modality of behavior is formed - “taking and holding things.” It appears when the child learns to sit. All these achievements lead to the child identifying himself as a separate individual.

The formation of the first form of ego-identity, like all subsequent ones, is accompanied by a developmental crisis. His indicators at the end of the 1st year of life: general tension due to teething, increased awareness of oneself as a separate individual, weakening of the mother-child dyad as a result of the mother’s return to professional activities and personal interests. This crisis is overcome more easily if, by the end of the 1st year of life, the ratio between basic trust and basic distrust is in favor of the former.

Signs of social trust in an infant are manifested in easy feeding, deep sleep, and normal bowel function.

The dynamics of the relationship between trust and distrust in the world are 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.

B. Early childhood. Stage two: autonomy versus shame and doubt. It begins from the moment the child begins to walk.

At this stage, the pleasure zone is associated with the anus. The anal zone creates two opposite modes - the mode of holding and the mode of relaxation (release). Society, attaching special importance to teaching a child to be neat, creates conditions for the dominance of these modes, their separation from their organ and transformation into such modalities of behavior as “preservation” and “destruction”. The struggle for “sphincteric control”, as a result of the importance attached to it by society, is transformed into a struggle for mastery of one’s motor capabilities, for the establishment of a new, autonomous self.

Control on the part of parents makes it possible to preserve this feeling by limiting the child’s growing desires to demand, appropriate, and destroy, when he, as it were, tests the strength of his new capabilities. But external control at this stage should be strictly calming. The child must feel that his basic belief in existence is not threatened.

Parental restrictions create the basis for negative feelings of shame and doubt. The emergence of a feeling of shame, according to E. Erikson, is associated with the emergence of self-awareness. In our civilization, according to E. Erikson, shame is easily absorbed by feelings of guilt. Punishing and shaming a child for bad behavior leads to the feeling that “the eyes of the world are looking at him.”

The struggle of a sense of independence against shame and doubt leads to the establishment of a relationship between the ability to cooperate with other people and insist on one's own, between freedom of expression and its restriction. At the end of the stage, a fluid balance develops between these opposites. It will be positive if parents and close adults do not overly control the child and suppress his desire for autonomy.

C. Preschool age. Third stage: initiative versus guilt. Being firmly convinced that he is his own person, the child must now find out what kind of person he can become.

Three lines of development form the core of this stage, simultaneously preparing its future crisis: 1) the child becomes freer and more persistent in his movements and, as a result, establishes a wider and essentially unlimited radius of goals; 2) his sense of language becomes so perfect that he begins to ask endless questions about countless things, often without receiving a proper and intelligible answer, which contributes to a completely incorrect interpretation of many concepts; 3) both speech and developing motor skills allow the child to expand his imagination into such a large number of roles that sometimes it frightens him. He can profitably discover the outside world by combining permitted actions with his own abilities. He is ready to see himself as a greater being than adults. He begins to make comparisons about differences in size and other properties of the people around him, and shows unlimited curiosity, in particular about gender and age differences. He tries to imagine possible future roles and figure out which ones are worth imagining.

The matured child looks more “like himself” - more loving, calmer in his judgment, more active and proactive. Now he quickly forgets his mistakes and achieves what he wants in a non-humiliating and more accurate way. Initiative adds to autonomy the qualities of enterprise, planning and the ability to “attack” a task only for the sake of experiencing a sense of one’s own activity and “motor joy”, and not as before, due to an involuntary desire to annoy or, at least, emphasize one’s independence.

Modes of invasion and inclusion create new modalities of behavior at this stage of personality development.

The mode of intrusion, which dominates behavior at this stage, determines the variety of types of activity and fantasies that are “similar” in form. Invasion of space through vigorous movements; attacking other bodies through physical assault; “getting into” the ears and souls of other people through aggressive sounds; entering the unknown through devouring curiosity - this is, as E. Erikson describes, a preschooler at one pole of his behavioral reactions. At the other pole, he is receptive to his surroundings, ready to establish gentle and caring relationships with peers and children. Under the guidance of adults and older children, he gradually enters into the intricacies of children's politics in the garden, street, and yard. His desire to learn at this time is surprisingly strong; he moves steadily forward from limitations to future possibilities.

The stage of play and childhood genitality adds to the list of basic modalities for both sexes the modality of “doing,” in particular, “making a career.” Moreover, for boys the emphasis remains on “doing” through a brain attack, while for girls it can turn into “catching” through either an aggressive capture or turning themselves into an attractive and irresistible person - prey. In this way, the prerequisites for male or female initiative are formed, as well as some psychosexual images of oneself, which become ingredients of positive and negative aspects of future identity.

D. School age. Stage four: hard work versus inferiority. The fourth stage of personality development is characterized by a certain dormancy of infantile sexuality and a delay in genital maturity, necessary for the future adult to learn the technical and social foundations of work.

With the onset of the latency period, a normally developing child forgets, or rather sublimates, the previous desire to “do” people through direct aggressive action and immediately become “dad” or “mom”; now he learns to gain recognition by producing things. He develops a sense of diligence, hard work, and adapts to the inorganic laws of the instrumental world. Tools and work skills are gradually included in the boundaries of his Self: the principle of work teaches him the pleasure of the expedient completion of work, achieved through unwavering attention and persistent diligence. He is filled with the desire to design and plan.

At this stage, a broad social environment is very important for him, allowing him to take on roles before he encounters the relevance of technology and economics, and a good teacher who knows how to combine play and study, how to involve the child in business, is especially important. What is at stake here is nothing less than the development and maintenance in the child of a positive identification with those who know things and know how to do things.

The school systematically introduces the child to knowledge, conveys the “technological ethos” of the culture, and develops diligence. At this stage, the child learns to love learning, maintains discipline, fulfills the demands of adults and learns most selflessly, actively appropriating the experience of his culture. At this time, children become attached to the teachers and parents of their friends, they want to observe and imitate the activities of people that they understand - a fireman and a policeman, a gardener, a plumber and a garbage man. In all cultures, the child at this stage receives systematic instruction, although not always only within the walls of school.

E. Erikson emphasizes that at each stage of development, the child must come to a vital sense of his own worth and should not be satisfied with irresponsible praise or condescending approval. His ego identity achieves real strength only when he understands that his achievements are manifested in those areas of life that are significant for a given culture. The sense of competence maintained in each child (i.e., the free exercise of one's skills and intellect in performing serious tasks, unaffected by infantile feelings of inferiority) creates the basis for cooperative participation in productive adult life.

B. Adolescence and youth. Fifth stage: personal individuality versus role confusion (identity confusion). The fifth stage is characterized by the deepest life crisis. Three lines of development lead to it: 1) rapid physical growth and puberty (“physiological revolution”); 2) concern about how the teenager looks in the eyes of others, what he represents; 3) the need to find one’s professional calling that meets acquired skills, individual abilities and the requirements of society. In a teenage identity crisis, all past critical moments of development arise anew. The teenager must now solve all the old problems consciously and with the inner conviction that this is the choice that is significant for him and for society. Then social trust in the world, independence, initiative, and mastered skills will create a new integrity of the individual.

F. Youth. Stage six: intimacy versus loneliness. Overcoming the crisis and the formation of ego-identity allows young people to move to the sixth stage, the content of which is the search for a life partner, the desire for close friendly ties with members of their social group. Now the young man is not afraid of loss of self and depersonalization, he is able to “readily and willingly mix his identity with others.”

The basis for the desire to get closer to others is the complete mastery of the main modalities of behavior. It is no longer the mode of some organ that dictates the content of development, but all the considered modes are subordinated to the new, holistic formation of ego-identity that appeared at the previous stage. The body and personality (Ego), being complete masters of erogenous zones, are already able to overcome the fear of losing their Self in situations requiring self-denial. These are situations of complete group solidarity or intimacy, close camaraderie or direct physical combat, experiences of inspiration caused by mentors, or intuitions from deepening into one’s Self.

The young person is ready for intimacy, he is able to commit himself to cooperation with others in specific social groups, and he has sufficient ethical strength to firmly adhere to such group affiliation, even if it requires significant sacrifices and compromises.

Avoidance of such experiences and contacts that require closeness due to fear of loss of self can lead to a feeling of deep loneliness and a subsequent state of complete self-absorption and distancing. Such a violation, according to E. Erikson, can lead to acute “character problems” and psychopathology. If the mental moratorium continues at this stage, then instead of a feeling of closeness there arises a desire to maintain distance, not to let into one’s “territory”, into one’s inner world. There is a danger that these aspirations and the biases that arise from them can turn into personality traits - into experiences of isolation and loneliness.

G. Maturity. Seventh stage: productivity (generativity) versus stagnation. This stage can be called central at the adult stage of a person’s life path. Personal development continues thanks to the influence of children and the younger generation, which confirms the subjective feeling of being needed by others. Productivity (generativity) and procreation (procreation), as the main positive characteristics of the individual at this stage, are realized in caring for the upbringing of the new generation, in productive work activity and in creativity. In everything a person does, he puts a piece of his Self, and this leads to personal enrichment. A mature person needs to be needed.

Generativity is, first of all, an interest in the organization of life and the guidance of the new generation. And quite often, in the case of failures in life or special talent in other areas, a number of people direct this drive not to their offspring, so the concept of generativity also includes productivity and creativity, which makes this stage even more important.

N. Old age. Eighth stage: personal integrity versus despair. Having gained life experience, enriched by caring for the people around him, and especially children, with creative ups and downs, a person can gain integrativeness - the conquest of all seven previous stages of development. E. Erikson identifies several of its characteristics: 1) ever-increasing personal confidence in one’s inclination towards order and meaningfulness; 2) post-narcissistic love of a human person (and not an individual) as an experience that expresses some kind of world order and spiritual meaning, regardless of what price it costs; 3) acceptance of one’s only path in life as the only one that is proper and does not need to be replaced; 4) new, different from the previous, love for your parents; 5) a comradely, involved, affiliative attitude towards the principles of distant times and various activities in the form as they were expressed in the words and results of these activities.

The bearer of such personal integrity, although he understands the relativity of all possible life paths that give meaning to human efforts, is nevertheless ready to defend the dignity of his own path from all physical and economic threats. After all, he knows that the life of an individual person is only a random coincidence of only one life cycle with only one segment of history and that for him the entire human integrity is embodied (or not embodied) in only one type - the one that he realizes. Therefore, for a person, the type of integrity developed by his culture or civilization becomes the “spiritual heritage of the fathers,” the stamp of origin. At this stage of development, wisdom comes to a person, which E. Erikson defines as a detached interest in life in the face of death.

The end of the life cycle also gives rise to “final questions”, which not a single great philosophical or religious system passes by. Therefore, any civilization, according to E. Erikson, can be assessed by the importance it attaches to the full life cycle of an individual, since this importance (or lack thereof) affects the beginning of the life cycles of the next generation and affects the formation of a child’s basic trust (mistrust) in to the world.

In recent decades, there has been an increasing tendency towards an integrated, holistic consideration of personality from the standpoint of different theories and approaches, and an integrative concept of development is also outlined here, taking into account the coordinated, systemic formation and interdependent transformation of all those aspects of personality, which were emphasized in line with various approaches and theories. One of these concepts was the theory belonging to the American psychologist E. Erikson, in which, more than in others, this tendency was expressed.

E. Erikson, in his views on development, adhered to the so-called epigenetic principle: genetic predetermination of the stages that a person necessarily goes through in his personal development from birth to the end of his days. The most significant contribution of E. Erikson to the theory of personal development is the identification and description of eight life psychological crises that inevitably occur in every person:

1. Crisis of trust - mistrust (during the first year of life).

2. Autonomy versus doubt and shame (around 2-3 years of age).

3. The emergence of initiative as opposed to feelings of guilt (from approximately 3 to 6 years).

4. Hard work as opposed to an inferiority complex (ages 7 to 12 years).

5. Personal self-determination as opposed to individual dullness and conformism (from 12 to 18 years).

6. Intimacy and sociability as opposed to personal psychological isolation (about 20 years).

7. Concern for raising the new generation as opposed to “immersion in oneself” (between 30 and 60 years).

8. Satisfaction with life lived as opposed to despair (over 60 years old).

The formation of personality in Erikson’s concept is understood as a change of stages, at each of which there is a qualitative transformation of a person’s inner world and a radical change in his relationships with people around him. As a result of this, he as a person acquires something new, characteristic specifically for this stage development and remains with him (at least in the form of noticeable traces) throughout his life.

Personal new formations themselves, according to E. Erikson, do not arise out of nowhere - their appearance at a certain stage is prepared by the entire process of previous personality development. Something new in it can emerge and become established only when appropriate psychological and behavioral conditions have already been created in the past.

Forming and developing as a person, a person acquires not only positive qualities, but also disadvantages. It is almost impossible to present in detail in a single theory all possible options for individual personal development based on all possible combinations of positive and negative neoplasms. With this difficulty in mind, E. Erikson depicted in his concept only two extreme lines of personal development: normal and abnormal. In their pure form, they almost never occur in life, but they contain all sorts of intermediate options for a person’s personal development (Table 2).

Table 2.Stages of personality development according to E. Erikson

E. Erikson identified eight stages of development, one to one correlated with the crises of age-related development described above. At the first stage, the child’s development is determined almost exclusively by the communication of adults, primarily the mother, with him. At this stage, prerequisites may already arise for the manifestation of desire for people in the future or withdrawal from them.

The second stage determines the formation in the child of such personal qualities as independence and self-confidence. Their formation also largely depends on the nature of communication and treatment of adults with the child.

Note that by the age of three, the child already acquires certain personal forms of behavior, and here E. Erikson argues in accordance with the data of experimental studies. One can argue about the legitimacy of reducing all development specifically to communication and treatment of the child by adults (research shows the important role of objective joint activity in this process), but the fact that a three-year-old child already behaves like a small person is almost beyond doubt.

The third and fourth stages of development, according to E. Erikson, also generally coincide with the ideas of D. B. Elkonin and other domestic psychologists. This concept, like those we have already discussed, emphasizes the importance of educational and work activities for the mental development of the child during these years. The difference between the views of our scientists and the positions espoused by E. Erikson lies only in the fact that he focuses on the formation not of operational and cognitive skills and abilities, but of personality traits associated with the corresponding types of activities: initiative, activity and hard work (in positive pole of development), passivity, reluctance to work and an inferiority complex in relation to labor and intellectual abilities (at the negative pole of development).

The following stages of personal development are not represented in the theories of domestic psychologists. But we can quite agree that the acquisition of new life and social roles forces a person to look at many things in a new way, and this, apparently, is the main point of personal development in older age following adolescence.

At the same time, the line of abnormal personality development outlined by E. Erikson for these ages raises objections. It clearly looks pathological, while this development can take on other forms. It is obvious that E. Erikson's belief system was strongly influenced by psychoanalysis and clinical practice.

In addition, at each of the stages of development he identifies, the author points only to individual points that explain its progress, and only to some personal new formations characteristic of the corresponding age. Without proper attention, for example, in the early stages of child development, the child’s assimilation and use of speech remained, and mostly only in abnormal forms.

Nevertheless, this concept contains a significant amount of truth in life, and most importantly, it allows us to imagine the importance of the childhood period in the entire process of a person’s personal development.

Erik Erikson's theory of personality development states:

1. Society is not antagonistic for a child.
2. Personality develops from birth to death.
3. Personality develops through successive stages of life.
4. The stages of life, as stages of personality development, are the same for everyone.
5. There are eight stages in human development.
6. A person can go through each stage of his development either safely or not.
7. The transition from a stage to the next stage is a personal crisis.
8. In a crisis, ego identity is lost, the task of the psychotherapist is to return it.

Read more.

Society is not antagonistic for a child

In the concept of psychoanalysis, I and society, Id and Super-Ego, are presented as hostile, antagonistic principles to each other. Erikson began to distinguish between rituals and ritualisms and argued that the relationship between the individual and society can be a cooperative relationship that ensures the harmonious development of the individual.

Personality develops from birth to death

This is another departure from classical psychoanalysis, where personality development was described only as psychosexual development. However, personal development for Erik Erikson is passive personal growth, where the main thing is not the achievement of certain peaks, but “agreement with oneself.”

Personality develops through successive stages of life

According to Erik Erikson, in the development of personality there are some mandatory and successive stages that everyone must go through in their development. As a development paradigm, it is a ladder. Is this the only possible view of personality development? No. Other researchers believe that personality can develop both as a honeycomb and as a crown.

The stages of life, as stages of personality development, are the same for everyone

Erik Erikson's theory is an epigenetic theory. Epigenesis is the presence of a holistic innate plan that determines the main stages of development.

There are eight stages in human development

According to Erikson, development continues throughout life, and each stage of development is marked by a conflict specific to it, the favorable resolution of which leads to a transition to a new stage:

1. The first stage is from birth to one year, the conflict between trust and mistrust;
2. The second stage is from one to two years, the conflict between autonomy and doubt;
3. The third stage is from three to six years, the conflict between enterprise and inadequacy;
4. The fourth stage corresponds to Freud’s “latent period”, the conflict between creativity and an inferiority complex;
5. The fifth stage is adolescence, personal identification and role confusion;
6. The sixth stage is early adulthood, the conflict between intimacy and loneliness;
7. The seventh stage is late adulthood, the conflict of productivity and stagnation;
8. The eighth stage is the conflict of integrity and hopelessness.

Favorable resolutions to conflicts are called “virtues”. The names of the virtues in order of their gradual acquisition are: hope, will, purpose, confidence, loyalty, love, caring and wisdom. More details

A person can go through each stage of his development either safely or not.

Successful passage is usually determined by how well a person has passed through the previous stages of his development, as well as by the well-being of the social situation. Wars, social crises and other blows of fate prevent a person from successfully passing the next stage of his life’s journey.

Erik Erikson did not work with people engaged in active personal growth and development, developing themselves according to plan and consciously. Erikson described what happens in the spontaneous development of personality, including elements of personal degradation. And if developed person can build himself consciously, be the author of his life, then with Erickson’s patients the successful passage of the next stage only happened - either it didn’t happen, either you were lucky or not - and then, dear victims, you are referred to a psychotherapist. The psychotherapist helped the person build his next stage of life more actively and more consciously, although Erik Erikson never set himself the task of becoming a personal coach.

The transition from a stage to the next stage is a personality crisis

The idea of ​​development as a sequence of psychosocial crises is, to say the least, not obvious. Yes, at some stage of a person’s life there are alternative paths of development, and depending on his choice, personal development can turn out to be either positive and harmonious, or negative, with developmental disorders and disorders of the emotional, personal and cognitive spheres. A positive resolution of the crisis contributes to the formation of a positive new formation or a strong personality trait; negative - a destructive neoplasm that prevents the formation of ego-identity.

The question is, why should the presence of an important alternative in development be called a crisis? According to Wikipedia, a crisis is a turning point in which the inadequacy of the means to achieve goals gives rise to unpredictable problems. If in a situation of choice you use inadequate means of achieving goals and generate unpredictable problems, then, indeed, every choice will turn out to be a crisis. Perhaps Erik Erikson's clients turned out to be such people. But to formulate on this basis that for any person, including smart and healthy ones, the construction of a new stage of his life is a crisis - there are probably not enough reasons. Moreover, it seems that such formulations are pathogenic, creating unreasonable anxieties about upcoming life events.

In a crisis, ego identity is lost, the task of the psychotherapist is to restore it

For Erik Erikson, the main thing in a person’s life is to be in agreement with oneself, but at the same time to develop. Ego identity denotes the integrity of the developing personality; the identity and continuity of our Self, despite the changes that occur to us in the process of growth and development. “I am developing, but I am the same”

Stages of personality development according to Erik Erikson

According to Erik Erikson's theory of personality development, personality development continues throughout life, where one stage, in the case of successful resolution of internal contradictions, comes to replace another.

Childhood

1. Trust and mistrust

The first stage of human development corresponds to the oral phase of classical psychoanalysis and usually covers the first year of life. During this period, Erikson believes, a parameter of social interaction develops, the positive pole of which is trust, and the negative pole is distrust.

The degree of trust with which a child develops in the world around him, in other people and in himself, largely depends on the care shown to him. A baby who gets everything he wants, whose needs are quickly satisfied, who never feels sick for a long time, who is rocked and caressed, played with and talked to, feels that the world, in general, is a cozy place, and people are responsive and helpful creatures. . If a child does not receive proper care, does not encounter loving care, then distrust develops in him - fearfulness and suspicion towards the world in general, towards people in particular, and he carries this distrust with him into other stages of his development.

It must be emphasized, however, that the question of which principle will prevail is not resolved once and for all in the first year of life, but arises anew at each subsequent stage of development. This brings both hope and threat. A child who comes to school with a feeling of wariness may gradually develop confidence in a teacher who does not allow injustice towards children. In doing so, he can overcome the initial distrust. But on the other hand, a child who has developed a trusting approach to life in infancy may become distrustful of it at subsequent stages of development if, say, in the event of a parent’s divorce, an environment filled with mutual accusations and scandals is created in the family.

A favorable resolution to this conflict is hope.

Achieving balance

2. Independence and indecisiveness(autonomy and doubt).

The second stage covers the second and third years of life, coinciding with the anal phase of Freudianism. During this period, Erickson believes, the child develops independence based on the development of his motor and mental abilities. At this stage, the child masters various movements, learns not only to walk, but also to climb, open and close, push and pull, hold, release and throw. Kids enjoy and are proud of their new abilities and strive to do everything themselves: unwrap lollipops, get vitamins from a bottle, flush the toilet, etc. If parents allow the child to do what he is capable of, and do not rush him, the child develops the feeling that he controls his muscles, his impulses, himself and, to a large extent, his environment - that is, he gains independence.

But if educators show impatience and rush to do for the child what he himself is capable of, he develops shyness and indecisiveness. Of course, there are no parents who do not rush their child under any circumstances, but the child’s psyche is not so unstable as to react to rare events. Only if, in an effort to protect the child from effort, parents show constant zeal, unreasonably and tirelessly scolding him for “accidents”, be it a wet bed, soiled panties, a broken cup or spilled milk, does the child develop a feeling of shame in front of other people and lack of confidence in one’s ability to manage oneself and the environment.

If a child emerges from this stage with a great deal of uncertainty, this will adversely affect the independence of both the teenager and the adult in the future. Conversely, a child who takes away much more independence from this stage than shame and indecision will be well prepared to develop independence in the future. And again, the relationship between independence, on the one hand, and shyness and uncertainty, on the other, established at this stage, can be changed in one direction or another by subsequent events.

The favorable resolution of this conflict is will.

3. Entrepreneurship and guilt(in another translation - Enterprise and inadequacy).

The third stage usually occurs between four and five years of age. The preschooler has already acquired many physical skills; he can ride a tricycle, run, cut with a knife, and throw stones. He begins to invent activities for himself, and not just respond to the actions of other children or imitate them. His ingenuity manifests itself both in speech and in the ability to fantasize. The social dimension of this stage, says Erikson, develops between enterprise at one extreme and guilt at the other. How parents react to the child’s ideas at this stage largely determines which of these qualities will prevail in his character. Children who are given the initiative in choosing motor activities, who run, wrestle, tinker, ride a bicycle, sled, or skate at will, develop and consolidate their entrepreneurial spirit. It is also reinforced by the parents’ readiness to answer the child’s questions (intellectual entrepreneurship), and not to interfere with his imagination and starting games. But if parents show the child that his motor activity is harmful and undesirable, that his questions are intrusive, and his games are stupid, he begins to feel guilty and carries this feeling of guilt into further stages of life.

A favorable resolution of this conflict is the goal.

4. Skill and inferiority(creativity and inferiority complex).

The fourth stage is between the ages of six and eleven years, the primary school years. Classical psychoanalysis calls them the latent phase. During this period, the son's love for his mother and jealousy for his father (for girls, on the contrary) are still in a latent state. During this period, the child develops the ability for deduction, organized games and regulated activities. Only now, for example, are children properly learning to play pebbles and other games where they must take turns. Erikson says that the psychosocial dimension of this stage is characterized by skill on the one hand and feelings of inferiority on the other.

During this period, the child’s interest in how things work, how they can be mastered, adapted to something, intensifies. Robinson Crusoe is understandable and close to this age; In particular, the enthusiasm with which Robinson describes his activities in every detail corresponds to the child’s awakening interest in work skills. When children are encouraged to make anything, to build huts and airplane models, to cook, cook and do handicrafts, when they are allowed to finish what they start, praised and rewarded for their results, then the child develops skill and ability for technical creativity. On the contrary, parents who see nothing but “pampering” and “messing” in their children’s work activities contribute to the development of their feelings of inferiority.

At this age, however, the child’s environment is no longer limited to the home. Along with the family, other social institutions begin to play an important role in his age-related crises. Here Erikson again expands the scope of psychoanalysis, which until now only took into account the influence of parents on the child's development. A child’s stay at school and the attitude he encounters there has a great influence on the balance of his psyche. A child who lacks intelligence is especially likely to be traumatized by school, even if his diligence is encouraged at home. He is not so stupid that he gets into a school for mentally retarded children, but he learns the material more slowly than his peers and cannot compete with them. Continuous falling behind in class disproportionately develops his feelings of inferiority.

But a child whose inclination to make something has died out due to eternal ridicule at home can revive it at school thanks to the advice and help of a sensitive and experienced teacher. Thus, the development of this parameter depends not only on parents, but also on the attitude of other adults.

The favorable resolution of this conflict is confidence.

Adolescence crisis

5. Personal identification and role confusion.

During the transition to the fifth stage (12-18 years old), the child is faced, as classical psychoanalysis claims, with the awakening of “love and jealousy” for his parents. The successful solution of this problem depends on whether he finds the object of love in his own generation. Erickson does not deny that this problem occurs in adolescents, but points out that others exist. The teenager matures physiologically and mentally, and in addition to the new sensations and desires that appear as a result of this maturation, he develops new views on things, a new approach to life. An important place in the new features of the adolescent’s psyche is occupied by his interest in the thoughts of other people, in what they think about themselves. Teenagers can create for themselves a mental ideal of family, religion, society, in comparison with which far from perfect, but really existing families, religions and societies are very inferior. The teenager is able to develop or adopt theories and worldviews that promise to reconcile all contradictions and create a harmonious whole. In short, the teenager is an impatient idealist who believes that creating an ideal in practice is no more difficult than imagining it in theory.

Erikson believes that the parameter of connection with the environment that arises during this period fluctuates between the positive pole of identification of the “I” and the negative pole of role confusion. In other words, a teenager who has acquired the ability to generalize is faced with the task of combining everything that he knows about himself as a schoolchild, son, athlete, friend, boy scout, newspaperman, and so on. He must collect all these roles into a single whole, comprehend it, connect it with the past and project it into the future. If a young person successfully copes with this task - psychosocial identification, then he will have a sense of who he is, where he is and where he is going.

Unlike previous stages, where parents had a more or less direct influence on the outcome of developmental crises, their influence now turns out to be most indirect. If, thanks to parents, a teenager has already developed trust, independence, enterprise and skill, then his chances of identification, that is, of recognizing his own individuality, increase significantly.

The opposite is true for a teenager who is distrustful, shy, insecure, filled with a sense of guilt and awareness of his inferiority. Therefore, preparation for comprehensive psychosocial identification in adolescence should begin, in fact, from the moment of birth.

If, due to an unsuccessful childhood or a difficult life, a teenager cannot solve the problem of identification and define his “I,” then he begins to show symptoms of role confusion and uncertainty in understanding who he is and what environment he belongs to. Such confusion is often observed among juvenile delinquents. Girls who show promiscuity in adolescence very often have a fragmented idea of ​​their personality and do not correlate their promiscuity with either their intellectual level or their value system. In some cases, young people strive for “negative identification,” that is, they identify their “I” with an image opposite to the one that parents and friends would like to see.

But sometimes it is better to identify yourself with a “hippie”, with a “juvenile delinquent”, even with a “drug addict”, than not to find your “I” at all.

However, anyone who does not acquire a clear idea of ​​his personality in adolescence is not doomed to remain restless for the rest of his life. And those who identified their “I” as a teenager will certainly encounter facts along the path of life that contradict or even threaten the idea they have about themselves. Perhaps Erickson, more than any other theoretical psychologist, emphasizes that life is a continuous change in all its aspects and that successfully solving problems at one stage does not guarantee that a person will be freed from the emergence of new problems at other stages of life or the emergence of new solutions to old ones that have already been solved seemed to be a problem.

The favorable resolution to this conflict is fidelity.

Midlife Conflicts

6. Intimacy and loneliness.

The sixth stage of the life cycle is the beginning of maturity - in other words, the period of courtship and the early years of family life, that is, from the end of adolescence to the beginning of middle age. Classical psychoanalysis does not say anything new or, in other words, anything important about this stage and the one that follows it. But Erickson, taking into account the identification of the “I” that has already occurred at the previous stage and the inclusion of a person in work activity, points to a parameter specific to this stage, which is concluded between the positive pole of intimacy and the negative pole of loneliness.

By intimacy, Erickson means more than just physical intimacy. In this concept he includes the ability to care for another person and share everything essential with him without fear of losing himself. With intimacy the situation is the same as with identification: success or failure at this stage does not depend directly on the parents, but only on how successfully the person has passed through the previous stages. As with identification, social conditions can make it easier or more difficult to achieve intimacy. This concept is not necessarily related to sexual attraction, but extends to friendship. Between fellow soldiers who have fought side by side in difficult battles, such close bonds are often formed that can serve as an example of intimacy in the broadest sense of the concept. But if a person does not achieve intimacy either in marriage or in friendship, then, according to Erikson, his lot becomes loneliness - the state of a person who has no one to share his life with and no one to care about.

The favorable resolution to this conflict is love.

7. Universal humanity and self-absorption(productivity and stagnation).

The seventh stage is adulthood, that is, the period when children have become teenagers and parents have firmly tied themselves to a certain occupation. At this stage, a new personality dimension appears with universal humanity at one end of the scale and self-absorption at the other.

Erickson calls universal humanity the ability of a person to be interested in the destinies of people outside the family circle, to think about the life of future generations, the forms of the future society and the structure of the future world. Such interest in new generations is not necessarily associated with having children of their own - it can exist in anyone who actively cares about young people and about making it easier for people to live and work in the future. Those who have not developed this sense of belonging to humanity focus on themselves and their main concern becomes the satisfaction of their needs and their own comfort.

The favorable resolution of this conflict is caring.

8. Integrity and hopelessness.

The eighth and final stage in Erikson's classification is the period when the main work of life has ended and the time for reflection and fun with grandchildren, if any, comes for a person. The psychosocial parameter of this period lies between integrity and hopelessness. A feeling of wholeness and meaningfulness in life arises for those who, looking back on their lives, feel satisfaction. Anyone who sees their life as a chain of missed opportunities and annoying mistakes realizes that it is too late to start all over again and that what has been lost cannot be returned. Such a person is overcome by despair at the thought of how his life could have turned out, but did not work out. The favorable resolution of this conflict is wisdom.