Analyzing Erikson's Eight Stages

According to Erik Erikson, a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst who translated and extended Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages into his own developmental theory, human develops and shapes eight psychosocial stages throughout their entire life span. The eight stages include Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, and Integrity vs. Despair. Human goes through the first four stages during childhood while the last three stages cover adulthood. As a high school senior, I have only gone through the first five stages and I experienced the most difficulty in stage five – Identity vs. Role Confusion.

Everyone faces challenges and difficulties in all eight stages. Stage five is a transitional stage from childhood to adulthood and the most important stage among eight stages, because this is a major stage for adolescent to learn and develop their future adult role in society. Adolescents try to find out what role and identity fits himself and later develop a concept of themselves within their social world. Personally, the stage takes place in adolescence - stage five - I found quite challenging because I could not discover myself and felt lost. After entering high school, as I was getting more mature and independent, questions like “Who will I be tomorrow?” always pop up in my mind and confused me. I was worried about my future in terms of career, families, relationships, etc. and I wanted to blend into the society I belong to.
Also, dream is an important part of our lives, we dream since we were born on nearly every night.

According to Calvin Hall's cognitive theory of dream, dreams are thoughts displayed in the mind’s private theater as visual concepts. (1) A few weeks ago, I dreamed I fall while I was walking down the stairs and then I woke up. Stairs in dream represent progress in some area in your real life. The event of falling down the stairs symbolizes that some situations are out of control in my life.(4) When I link this dream to my everyday life’s event, I felt lost and scared about my future which I was not willing to face it, because I do not have a clear direction what kind of career will I have and what are my values. Therefore, I believe I experienced the most difficulty in stage

5.
On the other hand, there are consequences when people fail to complete a stage, such as reducing ability to complete further stages and develop an unhealthy personality and sense of self.

When adolescent fail to resolve crisis or have trouble with stage five, they may develop identity diffusion. This means adolescent will enter their adulthood with confusion, do not have a clear idea who they really are and what they want out of life. Moreover, adolescent will also experience a vague and threatened sense of self. If they have too little identity, they may join cults or hate groups. If they have too much identity, they may show fanaticism. Pressure from parents also may lead to a negative outcome and make the situation even worse. When an adolescent develops an identity under pressure, it can lead to a rebellion in the form of establishing a negative identity. For example, when an adolescent is exploring his own identity and role. He would often change his image and lifestyle; However, if his parents put too much pressure on him, he starts to rebel against them and reject their

expectations.
Lastly, the idea of Erik Erikson's psychosocial stages increase our understanding of human personality development and marked a significant change to theories of personality in psychology. With the eight stages of psychosocial development, we can emphasize how social relationship influence our personality development across the entire lifespan. During the most important stage - Identity vs. Role confusion – it is important for adolescents to search for themselves and narrow the variety of options in order to choose their own adult pathway. If we fail to complete or face conflicts at any stages, the result is an unhealthy personality. Thus, we should try our best to resolve within that stage.