EDFN 4130 Sec. 4 Fall 2017 Writing Assignment # _1_ Miller, P. (2011). Chapter 3: Freud’s and Erikson’s Psychoanalytic Theories. In Theories of Developmental Psychology, 5th Ed., (pp. 143-157). New York: Worth Publishers.
Critical summary In Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development, he expands on Freud’s theory of psychological structures of the mind. Erikson is well known for his study on the role of factors such as parents, society, friends and culture on personality development from birth to old age. According to Erikson’s theory, all individuals must go through the eight interrelated stages over the entire life cycle. Like Freud, Erikson was interested on how personality and behavior is influenced after birth. He emphasized the role of culture and society and the conflicts that can take place within the ego. Erickson focuses on the adaptive and creative characteristic of the ego and expanding the notion of the stages of personality development. Erikson claims that a successful transition from previous stages results in a healthy character. Erikson constructed personality into eight differing psychosocial stages. Erikson’s theory resembles and corresponds to Freud’s psychosexual development of: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. In contrast to both Freud’s and …show more content…
Erikson viewed the ego as a positive driving force in human development and personality. “He believed that the main theme in life is the quest for identity” (p.148). Compared to Freud's negative emphasis on unpleasant tensions, Erikson focused on a positive approach to how people strive for their personal identity. Identity refers to a conscious sense of individual character. In Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, the emergence of an identity crisis occurs during the teenage years in which people struggle between feelings of identity versus role