Erik Erikson Case Study

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Recommended: Erikson's psychosocial theory

Examining Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Theory of Development Through Interviews
Erik Erikson theorizes that throughout life, an individual goes through several personal struggles and crises that must be resolved (Myers, 2010). There are eight stages of development: infancy, toddlerhood, preschool, elementary school, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. This paper will focus on adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood. For the adolescent (from teens into 20s), the greatest challenge is finding a single identity and a sense of self as opposed to being confused of their role in society. Conversely, the young adult (20s to early 40s) struggles through finding intimacy to avoid becoming socially isolated. Finally, the middle …show more content…

What are some of your most important goals?
Where in you life do you receive the most pleasure and satisfaction? Why?
What are your fears in life?
Who/what are your biggest influences?
I conducted the interviews by recording their answers with my cellphone and then later documented their responses, noting any similarities with Erikson’s theories and similarities.
Results
Adolescence The adolescent generally seemed to have trouble settling on a single identity. Furthermore, she stated that high academic expectations and fear of failure to be her biggest challenges.
The teenager felt like she changed her personalities depending on who she was with, citing influences such as her family, particularly her older sister, social media, her friends, her teammates. Her true self emerged when she was with her family. Her social media persona was more tailored and in tune with the “spectrum of trends” that she wanted to fit in. While she took more fashion and style cues from online, it was her friends that shaped her interests and even her patterns of speaking. Similarly, she suggested that she would mimic her field hockey teammates’ personalities to feel more

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