Exploring Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

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Growing up is a process. From infancy to adulthood there are different stages that are encountered in life. This is not only through chronological changes, but through psychosocial changes as well. This is referred to as the Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. Within this process there are eight stages or crisis and each presents a passing to the next stage or fail and resulting psychosocial outcome including susceptibility to substance use and resulting long-term consequences into adulthood. The first stage occurs in the first year of birth from infancy to a year and a half and is the trust versus mistrust stage. During this stage the world is an uncertain place and the infant looks to the primary caregiver for stability,
It is also in this stage that children chronologically and physiologically become adolescents as they move into their teen years and not only examine their occupational identity, but their sexual identity as well. During this stage the crisis is to achieve ego identity or fail into role confusion. It is in this stage that they question “Who am I?” They battle between fitting in with their peer groups and becoming their own person. It is in response to their identity crisis that an individual between the ages of twelve to eighteen years old will begin to experiment with different activities such as using substances. As Erik Erikson describes in his stages of development the basic virtue in stage five is that of fidelity. This may also be why those who fail the crisis of this stage begin using substances and participate in risky behavior such as sexual behavior. Other long-term consequences of substance use that follow into adulthood include negative psychological functioning in their perception and the rest of Erik Erikson’s stages, judgment, level of consciousness, impaired learning, and central nervous system as adults (Boundless, 2016; McWhirter et al.,2013). The sixth stage is in the young adult age from eighteen years old to forty and is the intimacy versus isolation stage. During this stage they will share and commit themselves

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