Stages of socialization periodization of erik erikson. Age crises in the theory of Erik Erickson (the concept of social identity)

CDT "Khibiny" Annual seminar "Pedagogical workshop" Compiled by a methodologist, Ph.D. Suleimanova N.I. Eric Erikson: Ego is a theory of personality. Stages of personality socialization according to Erickson. Age periods and crises of personality development. Erik Erikson was born in 1902 in Germany. Did not receive formal higher education after graduation. He studied history and art. He worked as a teacher in a small experimental American school in Vienna. In a mountain resort near Vienna, he began to study psychoanalysis, he himself underwent psychoanalysis. There he met the Freud family, and then was accepted as a candidate for classes at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. From 1927 to 1933, Erickson continued to study psychoanalysis under Anna Freud. This was his only formal academic education, apart from a certificate issued by the Teachers' Association. Maria Montessori in Vienna. In 1933 he left for Copenhagen and tried to establish a Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis there. But he fails and emigrates to the USA and settles in Boston, where there is already a psychoanalytic society. She works as a child psychoanalyst and is a research assistant in psychology at Harvard Medical School. He was enrolled as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Psychology, but he could not pass the tests necessary for this and refused further attempts to defend himself. In 1938, he began to deal with the problems of the influence of culture on the development of the child, studying anthropology and history. Anthropology - the science of the biological nature of man, studies the similarities and differences in the structure of people of different races. He leaves on an expedition to the reservation, where he oversees the upbringing of children by the Sioux Indians. Since 1942 he has been a professor of psychology at the University of Berkeley, California. Respected scholars in psychoanalysis. In 1950, he published his first book Childhood and Society, which was revised and republished in 1963. Since 1951 he has been working in a private rehabilitation therapy center for adolescents with mental disorders. Continues to create his theory of psychosocial development. Studying the biographies of various historical figures and American children. A lot is published. 1969 Gandhi's Truth 1958 Luther's Youth: A Psychoanalytic and Historical Study. 1964 - "Insight and Responsibility". 1968 - "Identity: The Crisis of Youth". "Youth: Change and Challenge". Died in 1994. Ego-psychology is the result of the development of psychoanalysis. Basic provisions of the theory. A person throughout his life goes through several stages that are universal for all mankind. Eight ages of man. Each stage is accompanied by a crisis - a turning point in life, which occurs as a result of reaching a certain level of development. At each stage of his development, a person must solve a certain life task, a problem in his own way. social development. This task is necessarily set before the individual by society, but not always a person knows how to solve it. The crisis is accompanied by the Khibiny Central Children's Center Annual seminar "Pedagogical workshop" Compiled by a methodologist, Ph.D. Suleimanova N.I. conflict between the individual and society. If the conflict is resolved safely, then the person moves on to the next stage of his development. If not, then the person earns some kind of neurosis or a negative quality of character. From the first days of life, the child is focused on inclusion in a certain group of people, next to whom he grows up. He first perceives the world through the eyes of loved ones. Adults tell him how it works, what is good and what is bad from their point of view. But gradually the child begins to realize himself, his EGO develops, his own attitude towards people and the world. This is a long process that lasts a lifetime. Infancy stage. The main role in the life of the child is played by the mother. If she feeds, cares for the child, caresses and takes care of him, talks with the child, then he forms a basic trust in the world. He sleeps well, eats well, knows how to calmly wait for his mother, does not scream. If the mother is anxious and neurotic, the situation in the family is tense, the child is given little attention, then stable pessimism and a basic distrust of the world are formed. Lack of emotional communication delays the mental development of the child. Early childhood . The child develops a sense of autonomy and independence. He begins to walk, run, he asks to go to the toilet. The child begins to realize that among people something can be done, but something cannot. You can’t walk in “wet pants”, it’s embarrassing, he feels the possibility of punishment. You can’t scold a child a lot, punish him for something that he is not yet able to control. But it is impossible to encourage when he beats someone, spits, offends animals, dirty. Your condemnation of his actions must be shown in a strict tone of voice. The requirements for the child must be constant, consistent and concern not his personality, but his act. It is necessary to encourage his independence, the desire to do everything himself. “I am myself,” says the child, realizing himself for the first time as a person who has the right to his own opinion and deed. The game becomes a school of life for the child. It is very good if at this age he begins to actively communicate with peers. Sometimes parents forcibly isolate the child, entrusting grandparents. This is bad for both adults and children. Playing with children, the child develops enterprise and initiative, he learns to understand others, limit himself, and reckon with others. If the child does not have the opportunity to fully play, the child becomes passive, feels guilty for wanting what adults do not allow, and self-doubt grows. Junior school age - the child is increasingly moving away from the family. He must learn what is not always interesting. Must learn to comply with the requirements of the teacher. If he studies well, then self-confidence grows stronger. He learns to think for himself, to conduct reflection: a phased analysis of his actions. Arbitrarily (with the help of the will) listen, memorize. If a child feels bad at school, then there is a feeling of inferiority, self-doubt, loss of interest in learning for life, feelings of despair. If the parents scold the child, he begins to move away from them, to strive for autism, self-isolation. Or he begins to compensate for his failures by any means: aggression, whims, frequent illnesses, etc. Adolescence: if in the first stages the child has formed trust in the world, autonomy, initiative, confidence in his usefulness, significance, then the teenager begins to feel like a person who is good in this world. Now the main thing is that his peers should also highly appreciate him, as he himself. The child begins to assert himself, to realize his goals and desires, Khibiny CDT Annual seminar "Pedagogical workshop" Compiled by a methodologist, Ph.D. Suleimanova N.I. understand what he likes and what not. If self-affirmation fails, he becomes anxious, there is a feeling of loneliness, emptiness, there is a constant feeling of expectation of a miracle that will change his life for the better. Infantilism, when a person is dissatisfied with everyone and everything, but he himself does nothing to change his position. There is a fear of personal communication, the inability to emotionally influence persons of the opposite sex. Contempt for society, hostility, a feeling of "not recognizing oneself" from others. Youth and youth. Actual problems- the most global for all future life: the choice of a profession and a life partner. It is very important not to make a mistake. Adulthood - a person gives himself to the cause, which he also serves his family. It is important to feel that what you do is needed by people, that your family cannot do without you. What you need for your loved ones and children. If there is no favorite work, family, children, no one to pour out one's “I”, then the person is devastated, stagnation, inertia, psychological and physiological regression is outlined. After 50 years, a person rethinks his life, realizes his self in spiritual reflections about the past years. A person must understand that his life is a unique destiny that does not need to be redone. If you have to re-evaluate your life in old age because of changed conditions, this happens very painfully. A person should feel that the people around him are proud of him, grateful to him for what he has done for them. If relatives are indifferent, scold and blame him, a person loses his taste for life. Becoming dissatisfied with young people, scolding their tastes and lifestyle, grumbling and criticizing. Age crises accompany the transition from one stage to another. The transition from one period to another is a change in the consciousness of a person, in his attitude towards himself, people and life. There is a breakdown of the old social relations. During a crisis, children become naughty, refuse to do what adults ask, obstinate. Adults begin to behave in an unusual way for them. Neonatal crisis. The crisis of 3 years is stubbornness, the desire to do everything in your own way, whims. The crisis of 6–7 years is the beginning of systematic study. The crisis of 13-14 years is self-affirmation by all means. The crisis of 17-18 years is self-determination, identity to oneself. Role mixing, if the image of yourself is not selected, or the selected image does not suit you. Inability to choose a career and continue education, failure with the opposite sex. The crisis of 35 years is a revision of life choices. The crisis of 45 years is a revision of life values. Crisis of old age. Conclusions from Erickson's theory. Knowing the characteristics of each age makes it possible to better understand the causes of one's anxieties and the behavior of other people in different periods of their lives. Understanding contributes to the acceptance of others, develops the ability to look at the world from the positions of other people.

Stages and age in years	Relationship area	Development results (strength)	Polarities of the mechanisms of adaptability	Psychosocial crisis (essential polarities in personality)
1. Oral-sensory (infancy), 0 to 1 year	mother or substitute	energy and joy	buy - give	trust - distrust; hope - hopelessness
2. Musculo-anal (early childhood), 1 to 3 years	parents	self-control and desire for power	possess - give up	autonomy - doubt, shame
3. Locomotor-genital ( preschool age), from 3 to 6 years	parents, brothers, sisters	purposefulness	try to pretend	initiative - passivity, guilt
4. Latent (primary school age), from 6 to 12 years	school, neighbors	mastery of methods and skills	compete - design	skill - inferiority
5. Teenage (youth), from 13 to 18 years	peer groups	devotion and loyalty	be yourself - be forced to be alone	ego identity - role confusion
6. Early maturity, 20 to 25 years	Friends	Love	lose and find yourself in others	cooperation, intimacy – alienation, isolation
7. Average maturity, from 26 to 64 years	profession, native home	creativity and care	make something out of yourself - take care of someone	productivity - stagnation, inertia
8. Late maturity, 65 to death	humanity, neighbors	detachment, wisdom	draw from the past - resist non-existence	ego integration - despair

tanya. Children belonging to communities of almost the same level of socio-economic development acquire different personality traits due to different cultural traditions associated with the main type of occupation, and accepted parenting styles. In different Indian reservations, E. Erickson observed two tribes - the Sioux, former buffalo hunters, and the Yurok, fishermen and acorn gatherers. In the Sioux tribe, children are not swaddled tightly, they are fed for a long time breast milk, do not strictly monitor neatness and generally limit their freedom of action a little. Children are guided by the historical ideal of their tribe - a strong, courageous hunter on the endless prairies - and acquire such traits as initiative, determination, courage, generosity in relations with fellow tribesmen and cruelty towards enemies. In the Yurok tribe, on the contrary, children are weaned early, swaddled tightly, accustomed to neatness early, and restrained in communicating with them. They grow up silent, suspicious, stingy, prone to hoarding.

Personal development in its content is determined by what society expects from a person, what values ​​and ideals it offers, what tasks it sets for him at different age stages. But the sequence of stages in the development of a child depends on the biological principle. The child, maturing, necessarily goes through a series of successive stages. At each stage, he acquires a certain quality (personal neoplasm), which is fixed in the structure of the personality and persists in subsequent periods of life.

E. Erikson traced the integral life path of the individual, from birth to old age. general characteristics stages of development according to E. Erickson is presented in table 2.

The entire life path, according to Erickson, includes eight stages, each of which has its own specific tasks and can be favorably or unfavorably resolved for future development. The central point of the concept of E. Erickson is the idea of psychosocial identity as a final, integrating personality trait. The concept of identity means the identity of a person to himself. What does it mean? If a person has an identity, then he has himself: he has developed a completely defined and personally accepted image of himself in all the richness of the relationship of the individual to the world around him, he has developed a sense of adequacy and stable possession of his own “I”, independent of both changes in the “I”, and various situations, he has formed the ability to fully solve the problems that arise before him at each age stage. Identity is, first of all, an indicator of a mature (adult) personality, which goes through a number of stages in its development.

E. Erickson believes that at each new stage, new phenomena and properties arise that did not exist at the previous stages. These psychological neoplasms become the center of a person's mental life and behavior at a certain age level. The content and form of these neoplasms are determined by the conditions of communication between the child and the adult with the social environment, with the world of people significant to him, with social communities, with the world of work, and with the readiness of the child (adult) to one or another type of communication. However, this communication is based on individual internal prerequisites or, as E. Erickson writes, potentialities that obey the internal laws of development. It is these internal prerequisites (potentialities) that determine the selective impact on the individual of his social environment. E. Erickson attached great importance education, considering it an integral, integral part of the social system, through which the values ​​and norms of society are transmitted to the new generation.

At the first stage development, corresponding infancy, there is trust or distrust in the world. With the progressive development of the personality, the child "chooses" a trusting relationship. It manifests itself in light feeding, deep sleep, relaxation internal organs, normal bowel function. A child who trusts the world that surrounds him, without much anxiety and anger, endures the disappearance of his mother from his field of vision: he is sure that she will return, that all his needs will be satisfied. The baby receives from the mother not only milk and the care he needs, the “nourishment” of the world of forms, colors, sounds, caresses, smiles is also associated with her. A mother's love and tenderness determines "the amount of faith and hope taken from the first life experience" of the child. At this time, the child, as it were, "absorbs" the image of the mother (there is a mechanism of introjection). This is the first step in the formation of the identity of a developing personality.

Second stage corresponds early childhood. The possibilities of the child sharply increase, he begins to walk and defend his independence. But the growing sense of self-reliance should not undermine the trust in the world that has developed before. Parents help to keep it, limiting the desires that appear in the child to demand, appropriate, destroy when he tests his strength. The demands and limitations of the parents at the same time create the basis for a negative sense of shame and doubt. The child feels the "eyes of the world" watching him with judgment and strives to make the world not look at him or wants to become invisible himself. But this is impossible, and the “inner eyes of the world” appear in the child - shame for his mistakes, awkwardness, dirty hands, etc. If adults make too severe demands, often blame and punish the child, he has a fear of “losing face”, constant alertness, stiffness, and lack of communication. If the child's desire for independence is not suppressed, a correlation is established between the ability to cooperate with other people and insist on one's own, between freedom of expression and its reasonable restriction.

At the third stage, coinciding with preschool age, the child actively learns the world, simulates in the game the relationships of adults that have developed in production and in other areas of life, quickly and eagerly learns everything, acquiring new tasks and responsibilities. Initiative is added to independence. When the child's behavior becomes aggressive, the initiative is limited, feelings of guilt and anxiety appear; thus, new internal instances are laid - conscience and moral responsibility for one's actions, thoughts and desires. Adults should not overload the conscience of the child. Excessive disapproval, punishment for minor offenses and mistakes cause a constant feeling of guilt, fear of punishment for secret thoughts, revenge. Initiative is inhibited, passivity develops. At this age stage, gender identification occurs, and the child masters a certain form of behavior, male or female.

The fourth stage is primary school age (prepubertal, those. before puberty). This stage is associated with the education of industriousness in children, the need to master new knowledge and skills. The school becomes for them a "culture in itself", with its own specific goals, achievements and disappointments. Comprehension of the basics of work and social experience enables the child to gain the recognition of others and acquire a sense of competence. If the achievements are small, he acutely experiences his ineptitude, inability, disadvantageous position among his peers and feels doomed to be mediocre. Instead of a sense of competence, there is a sense of inferiority. The period of primary schooling is also the beginning of professional identification, the feeling of one's connection with representatives of certain professions.

Fifth stage - adolescence (youth) - period of deepest crisis. Childhood is coming to an end, and this long stage of the life path, ending, leads to the formation of identity. It combines and transforms all the child's previous identifications; new ones are added to them, since the matured, outwardly changed child is included in new social groups and acquires other ideas about himself. The holistic identity of the individual, trust in the world, independence, initiative and competence allow the young man to solve the main task that society sets for him - the task of self-determination, the choice of a life path.

When it is not possible to realize oneself and one's place in the world, there is a diffuse identity. It is associated with an infantile desire not to enter adulthood for as long as possible, with a vague, stable state of anxiety, a feeling of isolation and emptiness. The diffuseness of identity can manifest itself in a hostile rejection of social roles that are desirable for the family and the inner circle of a young man (male or female, national, professional, class, etc.), in contempt for everything domestic and overestimation of the foreign, in the desire to "become nothing" ( if this is the only way to assert yourself).

The sixth stage is early maturity. Formal start stage adult life. In general, this is the period of courtship, early marriage, and the beginning of family life. During this time, young people are usually oriented towards getting a profession and a “settlement”. Until that time, most manifestations of the sexual behavior of the individual were motivated by the search for ego-identity. The early achievement of a personal identity and the beginning of productive work give impetus to new interpersonal relationships. At one end of this dimension is intimacy, and at the opposite end is isolation. E. Erickson uses the term "intimacy" as a multifaceted one both in meaning and in breadth of coverage. He refers to intimacy as the intimate feeling we have for spouses, friends, siblings, parents, and other relatives. The main danger at this psychosocial stage lies in excessive self-absorption or avoidance of interpersonal relationships. The positive quality that is associated with the normal exit from the intimacy-isolation crisis is love. E. Erickson considers love as the ability to entrust oneself to another person and remain faithful to this relationship, even if they require concessions or self-denial. The social institution associated with this stage is ethics. People with an underdeveloped moral sense are ill-prepared to enter the next stage of psychosocial development.

Seventh stage - medium maturity. Its main problem is the choice between productivity and inertia. Productivity comes along with human concern not only for the well-being of the next generation, but also for the state of the society in which this future generation will live and work. Creative and productive elements of productivity are personified in everything that is passed down from generation to generation (technical products, works of art, etc.). If in adults the ability for productive activity is so pronounced that it prevails over inertia, then positive quality this stage is concern. Caring is the psychological opposite of indifference and apathy. Those adults who fail to become productive gradually move into a state of self-absorption, in which personal needs and comforts are the main concern. Life turns into self-satisfaction, impoverished interpersonal relationships. This phenomenon is called the crisis of older age.

Eighth stage - late maturity. The last psychosocial stage ends a person's life. This is the time when people look back and reconsider their life decisions, remember their achievements and failures. A person is overcome by numerous needs: one has to adapt to what is decreasing physical strength and deteriorating health, to a solitary lifestyle and a more modest financial situation, to the death of a spouse and the death of friends, as well as to establishing relationships with people of their own age. At this time, the focus of a person's attention shifts from worries about the future to past experiences. According to E. Erickson, this phase of maturity is characterized by a new psychosocial crisis as much as the summation, integration and evaluation of all past stages of ego development. The sense of ego integration stems from a person's ability to look at their entire past life(including marriage, children and grandchildren, career, achievements, social relations) and humbly but firmly say to yourself: “I am satisfied.” Wisdom is the realization of the unconditional significance of life itself in the face of death itself. At the opposite pole are people who treat their lives as a series of unrealized opportunities and mistakes. The lack or lack of integration in these people is manifested in a hidden fear of death, in the fear of being in a nursing home. If older people are interested in maintaining the integrity of their "I", they must do much more than just reflect on their past.

Concluding the consideration of periodizations mental development of a person in ontogenesis, we list the periods and stages traditionally distinguished in the human life cycle:

I. Prenatal period:

Pre-embryonic stage - 2 weeks;

Embryonic (embryonic) - from 3 weeks to the end of 2 months;

The fetal stage is from 3 months to delivery.

II. Childhood period:

neonatal crisis

Neonatal stage and infancy - from birth to 1 year;

Crisis 1 year;

Stage of early childhood (first childhood) - from 1 to 3 years;

Crisis 3 years;

Stage of preschool childhood (second childhood) - from 3 to 6 years;

Crisis 7 years;

Stage of primary school childhood (third childhood) - from 6 to 10-12 years.

III. Adolescence:

Teenage crisis (crisis of 13-14 years);

Adolescence (pubertal) period - from 11-12 to 14-17 years;

Crisis 17-18 years;

Youth period - from 17-18 to 20-23 years.

IV. Maturity:

Stage of early maturity or youth - from 20-23 to 30-33;

Crisis 33 years;

Bloom - 33-40;

Crisis 40 years;

Maturity - 40-55 years;

V. Old age:

Crisis 50-55 years;

Old age - 55-75 years;

Senile age - 75-90 years;

Longevity - over 90 years.

Literature:

Main:

1. Abramova, G.S. Developmental psychology / G.S. Abramov. - M., 1997.

2. Developmental and educational psychology: A textbook for ped students. in-tov / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky. - M .: Education, 1979.

3. Kulagina, I.Yu. Developmental psychology (Child development from birth to 17 years): Textbook / I.Yu. Kulagin. - M.: Publishing house of URAO, 1997.

4. Course of general, developmental and pedagogical psychology. Issue. 3 / Under. ed. M.V. Gamezo. – M.: Enlightenment, 1982.

5. Mukhina, V.S. Developmental psychology / V.S. Mukhin. – M.: Academy, 1997.

6. Nemov, R.S. Psychology. Book. 2 / R.S. Nemov. - M., 1997.

7. Obukhova, L.F. Developmental psychology / L.F. Obukhov. – M.: Ped. Society of Russia, 1995.

8. Practical psychology of education / Under. ed. I.V. Dubrovina. - M., 1998.

9. Stolyarenko, L.D. Fundamentals of Psychology: Textbook / L.D. Stolyarenko. - Rostov n / a: Phoenix, 2005.

10. Elkonin, D.B. Favorites / D.B. Elkonin. - M .: Academy of Pedagogical and Social Sciences, 1996.

Additional:

1. Vygotsky, L.S. Sobr. op. In 6 volumes / L.S. Vygotsky. - M .: Education, 1982-83.

2. Dubrovina I.V. Psychology: Textbook for students. avg. ped. textbook institutions / I.V. Dubrovina, E.E. Danilova, A.M. parishioners; ed. I.V. Dubrovina. – M.: Academy, 2007.

3. Kon, I.S. Psychology of early youth: Book. for the teacher / I.S. Con. – M.: Enlightenment, 1989.

4. Morgun, V.F. The problem of periodization of personality development in psychology: Proc. allowance / V.F. Morgun, N.Yu. Tkachev. – M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1981.

5. Psychology of development / Ed. T.D. Martsinkovskaya. - M., 2001.

6. Slobodchikov, V.I. Fundamentals of psychological anthropology. Psychology of human development: The development of subjective reality in ontogenesis: Proc. allowance for universities / V.I. Slobodchikov, E.I. Isaev. - M .: School-press, 2000.

7. Feldstein, D.I. Problems of age and pedagogical psychology / D.I. Feldstein. - M., 1995.

8. Khukhlaeva, O.V. Developmental psychology: youth, maturity, old age: Proc. allowance for students. higher textbook establishments. – M.: Academy, 2002.

9. Shulga, T.I. Psychological foundations of work with children at risk in institutions of social assistance and support / T.I. Shulga, L.Ya. Oliferenko. - M., 1997.

The model of the life path of E. Erickson considers the psychosocial aspects of the formation of the human "I". E. Erickson was based on three provisions:

First, he suggested that there are psychological stages in the development of the "I", during which the individual establishes basic guidelines in relation to himself and his social environment.

Secondly, E. Erickson argued that the formation of a personality does not end in adolescence and adolescence, but covers the entire life cycle.

Thirdly, he proposed the division of life into eight stages, each of which corresponds to the dominant parameter of the development of the "I", which takes a positive or negative value.

Positive development is associated with the self-realization of the individual, the achievement of happiness and success in life and is characterized, according to Erickson, by a certain logic of changing the positive parameters of the development of the "I". Negative development is associated with various forms of personality degradation, life disappointments, and a sense of inferiority. This vector of personality development is also characterized by a certain sequence, but already of negative parameters of the development of the "I". The question of which beginning will prevail is not decided once and for all, but arises anew in each subsequent stage. In other words, transitions from a negative vector to a positive one and vice versa are possible. The direction in which development will go - to a positive or negative parameter, depends on the success of a person in resolving the main problems and contradictions of each stage of life.

The age boundaries of the eight stages of life identified by Erickson, together with the dominant parameters of the development of the “I” characteristic of them, are presented in Table 2.

table 2

Full life cycle according to E. Erickson

Stages, age	significant relationships	Main choice or crisis age controversy	positive changes age	destructive changes age
Infancy		Fundamental faith and hope against underlying hopelessness	basic trust,	Withdrawal from communication and activities
Early childhood	Parents	Independence against dependencies, shame and doubt		Obsession (impulsiveness or conciliation)
Game age		Personal initiative against feelings of guilt censure	purposefulness, purposefulness	lethargy
School		Enterprise against feelings of inferiority	Competence, skill	inertia
Teenagers	Peer groups	Identity against confusion of identity	Loyalty	Shyness, negativity
	Friends, sexual partners, rivals, employees	Intimacy against isolation		Exclusivity (the tendency to exclude someone (oneself) from the circle of intimate relationships)
Adulthood	Divided common Home	Performance against stagnation, absorption	mercy	rejection
Old age	Mankind is "my kind"	Integrity, versatility against despair, disgust	Wisdom	Contempt

Istage(0-1 year) - "trust - distrust". During the first year of life, the baby adapts to a new environment for him. The degree of trust with which he relates to the world around him, to other people and to himself, to a large extent depends on the care shown to him. If the needs of the baby are satisfied, they play and talk with him, caress and cradle him, then he is imbued with confidence in the environment. If the child does not receive proper care, does not meet loving care and attention, then he develops distrust towards the world in general and people in particular, which he carries with him to the next stages of development.

IIstage(1-3 years) - "independence - indecision." At this stage, the child masters various movements and actions, learns not only to walk, but also to run, climb, open and close, push and pull, throw, etc. Toddlers are proud of their new abilities and tend to do everything themselves. If parents give the child the opportunity to do what he is capable of, then he develops independence, confidence in owning his body. If the educators show impatience and rush to do everything for the child, then he develops indecision and shame.

IIIstage(3-6 years) - "entrepreneurship - a sense of guilt." A preschool child has already acquired many motor skills - running, jumping, riding a tricycle, throwing and catching a ball, etc. He is inventive, he invents his own activities, fantasizes, throws adults questions. Children, whose initiative in all these areas is encouraged by adults, develop entrepreneurial spirit. But if the parents show the child that his motor activity is harmful and undesirable, that his questions are intrusive and inappropriate, and the games are stupid, he begins to feel guilty and carries the feeling of guilt into the next stages of life.

IVstage(6-11 years old) - "skill - inferiority." This stage coincides with education in elementary school, where academic success is of great importance for the child. A well-performing student receives confirmation of his skill, and a constant lagging behind his peers in his studies develops a sense of inferiority. The same thing happens in connection with the child's mastery of various labor skills. Parents or other adults who encourage the younger student to make something with their own hands, rewarding him for the results of his work, reinforce the emerging skill. If, on the contrary, educators see only "pampering" in the labor initiatives of children, they help to consolidate the feeling of inferiority.

Vstage(11-18 years old) - "identification of "I" - "confusion of roles"". Erickson considers this stage of life, covering adolescence and youth, to be one of the most important in the development of the individual, since it is associated with the formation of a holistic idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhis "I" and his connections with society. A teenager is faced with the task of summarizing everything that he knows about himself as a schoolboy, athlete, friend of his friends, son or daughter of his parents, etc. 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 has a clear idea of ​​​​who he is, where he is and where he should move on in life.

If in the previous stages of life a teenager has already developed trust, independence, enterprise and skill with the help of parents and educators, then his chances of successfully identifying the “I” increase significantly. But if a teenager enters this stage with a load of distrust, indecision, feelings of guilt and inferiority, it is much more difficult for him to define his "I". A symptom of a young person's trouble is "role confusion" - uncertainty in understanding who he is and what environment he belongs to. Erickson notes that such confusion is typical, for example, of juvenile delinquents.

VIstage(18-30 years old) - "proximity - loneliness." The main task of the stage of early adulthood is to find close people outside the parental family, that is, to create your own family and find a circle of friends. By closeness, Erickson means not only physical closeness, but also, mainly, the ability to care for another person and share everything significant with him. But if a person does not achieve intimacy either in friendship or in marriage, loneliness becomes his lot.

VIIstage(30-60 years) - "universal humanity - self-absorption". At this stage, a person reaches the highest social status for himself and success in his professional career. The norm for a mature person is the formation of universal humanity as the ability to be interested in the fate of people outside the family circle, to think about future generations, to benefit society with their work. The one who has not developed this feeling of “participation in humanity” remains absorbed only in himself and personal comfort.

VIIIstage(from 60 years old) - “integrity - hopelessness”. This is the last stage of life, when the main work ends and the time of reflection on life begins. The feeling of wholeness, meaningfulness of life arises in someone who, looking back at the past, is satisfied. The one to whom the life lived seems to be a chain of small goals, unfortunate blunders, unrealized opportunities, understands that it is too late to start over and the lost cannot be returned. Such a person is seized by despair and a sense of hopelessness at the thought of how his life could have developed, but did not work out.

The main idea that follows from the description of the eight stages of life and is fundamental to this model as a whole is the idea that a person makes his own life, his own destiny. The people around him can either help him in this, or hinder him.

The stages of life are linked by relationships of succession. The younger the child, the greater the success of passing through the relevant stages directly depends on parents and teachers. The older a person becomes, the more important is the previous experience of development - success or failure in previous stages. However, even "negative succession" is not, according to Erickson, fatal, and failure in one of the stages of life can be corrected by subsequent successes in other stages.

Pedagogical age periodization.

In modern pedagogical science, the periodization of childhood and school age is adopted, the basis of which - the stages of mental and physical development and the conditions in which education takes place, studied in different years by domestic psychologists (L.I. Bozhovich, L.S. Vygotsky, A.A. Davydov, A.N. Leontiev, A.V. Petrovsky and etc.). The following periods of development of children and schoolchildren are distinguished:

infancy (up to 1 year);

early childhood (1-3 years);

pre-preschool age (3-5 years);

preschool age (5-6 years);

junior school age (6-7-10 years old),

middle school, or adolescence (11-15 years);

senior school age, or early youth (15-18 years).

Each age or period of human development is characterized by the following indicators:

a certain social situation of development or that particular form of relationship that a person enters into with other people in a given period;

main or leading activity;

major mental neoplasms (from individual mental processes to personality traits).

Development in the first year of life. Immediately after birth, the baby enters a special and brief period of infancy. neonatal period. The neonatal period is the only period of a person's life when only innate, instinctive forms of behavior are observed, aimed at satisfying organic needs that ensure survival. By the age of 3 months, the child gradually develops two functional systems - social and subject contacts. All reflexes and automatisms present at birth can be divided into four main groups:

reflexes that provide the basic needs of the body: sucking, defensive, indicative and special motor - grasping, supporting and stepping over;

protective reflexes: strong skin irritations cause limb withdrawal, flashing before the eyes and an increase in the brightness of light lead to pupil constriction;

orienting-food reflexes: touching the lips and cheeks of a hungry child causes a search reaction;

atavistic reflexes: clinging, repulsion (crawling), swimming (a newborn from the first minutes of life moves freely in the water).

Unconditioned reflexes, ensuring survival, are inherited from animals and are subsequently included as constituent elements in other, more complex forms of behavior. Nothing develops in a child only on the basis of atavistic reflexes. So, the grasping reflex (squeezing the handle to irritate the palm) disappears before grasping appears (squeezing the handle to irritate the fingers). The crawling reflex (with emphasis on the soles) also does not develop and does not serve for movement - crawling will begin later with hand movements, and not repulsion with legs. All atavistic reflexes usually fade in the first three months of life.

Immediately after birth, the child already has sensations of all modalities, elementary forms of perception, memory, and thanks to this, further cognitive and intellectual development becomes possible. The sensations of a newborn are undifferentiated and are inextricably linked with emotions.

From the first minutes of life, negative emotions are fixed in the child, associated with the need to satisfy elementary needs (food, warmth), and only by the end of the first - the beginning of the second month of life, the child has response positive emotions.

At the beginning of the second month, the child reacts to an adult, and then to physical objects in the form of separate behavioral reactions - he concentrates, freezes, a smile or coo appears. In the third month of life, this reaction becomes a complex and basic form of behavior called « recovery complex. At the same time, the child focuses his eyes on the person and briskly moves his arms and legs, makes joyful sounds. This indicates the child's need for emotional communication with adults, that is, the first social need. The emergence of a "complex of revival" is considered a conditional boundary between the newborn and infancy.

The period of infancy. It is in infancy that the functional systems of social and subject contacts of the child begin to form and develop. Main directions of development:

1. Communication with adults. From 4-5 months of age, communication with adults becomes selective, the child learns to distinguish between “us” and “strangers”. Direct communication associated with the need to care for and care for the child is replaced by communication about objects, toys, which becomes the basis for the joint activities of the child and the adult. From the age of 10 months, in response to the naming of an object by adults, the child takes it and holds it out to the adult. This already indicates the emergence, along with emotional-gestural communication, of a new form of communication - objective communication.

The growing need for communication gradually comes into conflict with the expressive abilities of the child, which leads first to the understanding of speech, and then to mastering it.

2. Speech acquisition. An increased interest in human speech is recorded in a child from the first months of life. The chronology of speech development at this age is as follows:

1 month - the pronunciation of any simple sounds ("ah", "uh", "uh");

2-4 months - there is a hum (pronunciation simple syllables- "ma", "ba");

4-6 months - cooing (repetition of simple syllables - "ma-ba", "ba-ma"), the child begins to distinguish intonations in the voice of an adult;

7-8 months - babbling appears (pronunciation of words that do not exist in the nature of the native language - "wabam", "gunod"), an understanding of individual words of an adult appears, intonations in the child's voice differ;

9-10 months - the first words are fixed in speech, the child begins to understand the connection between the subject itself and its name.

By the end of infancy, the child accurately understands an average of 10-20 words and reacts to them in a certain way, pronouncing 1-2 words.

3. Development of movements. During the first year, the child actively masters progressive movements: he learns to hold his head, sit down, crawl, move on all fours, take a vertical position, take an object and manipulate it (throw, knock, swing). But the child may also have "dead-end" movements that inhibit development: sucking fingers, examining hands, bringing them to the face, feeling hands, rocking on all fours. Progressive movements provide an opportunity to learn new things, and dead-end ones - fence off from outside world. Progressive movements develop only with the help of adults. Lack of attention to the child contributes to the emergence and strengthening of dead-end movements.

4.emotional development. In the first 3-4 months, children develop a variety of emotional states: surprise in response to unexpectedness (slowing down of movements, slowing of the heart rate), anxiety in case of physical discomfort (increased movements, acceleration of the heart rate, closing eyes, crying), relaxation when meeting needs. After the appearance of the revitalization complex, the child reacts kindly to any adult, but after 3-4 months, he begins to get lost at the sight of strangers. Anxiety is especially intensified at the sight of a stranger at 7-8 months, at the same time there is also a fear of parting with mom or another loved one.

5.personal development is expressed by the appearance of a crisis of 1 year . The crisis is associated with a surge of independence of the child, the formation of walking and speech, the appearance of affective reactions in him. Outbursts of affect in a child occur when adults do not understand his desires, words or gestures, and also if adults do not do what he wants.

preschool period(early childhood). The physical forces accumulated during the first year and the experience of manipulating objects cause a great need for vigorous activity in the child. The directions of development outlined in the previous period are being improved and new ones appear:

1.mastering upright posture. The help of adults, their approval and stimulation of activity in this direction forms the need for walking. Complete mastery of bipedalism is associated not so much with the complication of walking: going up and down hills, steps, stepping on stones, etc., but with getting pleasure from walking upright and owning one's body. Mastering upright posture significantly expands the boundaries of the space available to the child, increases his independence.

2.The development of speech. The development of speech is closely related to the objective activity of the child. "Silent" forms of communication (display) become insufficient, the child is forced to turn to adults with various requests, but it is possible to turn only with the help of speech.

The development of speech in a child proceeds simultaneously in two directions: understanding of speech and the formation of one's own speech. At first, the child understands the situation and fulfills the requests of only specific persons (mother). By the age of 1 year, he already knows and pronounces individual words, and then comes the knowledge of the meaning of more and more words. By the age of 1.5 years, the child knows the meaning of 30-40 to 100 words, but uses them relatively rarely in his speech. After 1.5 years, speech activity increases, and by the end of the 2nd year he uses up to 300 words, and by the end of the 3rd - up to 1500 words. By the age of 2, the child speaks in two- or three-word sentences, and by the age of 3, children are able to speak fluently.

3. Play and productive activities. The game as a new type of activity of the child appears in the process of manipulating objects and learning their purpose. In the first year of life, direct interaction between children is practically not observed, and only by the age of two do children have the first real contacts with partners in the game.

Only in the third year of life do the productive activities of the child begin to take shape, which reach their expanded forms at subsequent stages - drawing, modeling, designing, and so on.

4. intellectual development. The main direction in the development of higher mental functions in young children is the beginning of the verbalization of cognitive processes, i.e. their mediation by speech. Verbalization gives impetus to the development of a new type of thinking - visual-figurative. The formation of figurative thinking in early childhood is accompanied by a fairly developed imagination. Imagination, like memory, is still involuntary during this period of childhood and arises under the influence of interest and emotions (for example, when listening to fairy tales, the child tries to imagine their characters, events and situations).

5. personal development. The end of early childhood is marked by the birth of the “I” phenomenon, when the child begins to call himself not by name, but by the pronoun “I”. The appearance of the psychological image of one's "I" marks the birth of the child's personality, the formation of self-awareness. The emergence of a new surge in the need for independence through the expression of one's will leads to the disintegration of the former social situation of development, which manifests itself in the crisis of three years. The verbal expression of the crisis of 3 years is “I myself” and “I want”. The desire to be like an adult, the desire to perform the activities that he observes in adults (turn on the light, go to the store, cook dinner, and so on) unreasonably exceed the child's real capabilities and it is impossible to satisfy all of them. It was during this period that for the first time the child began to notice manifestations of stubbornness and negativism directed against adults who constantly look after him and patronize him.

Preschool period. This period is responsible in terms of preparing the child for milestone his life- schooling. The main directions of development of the period:

1. Game activity. Preschool age is characterized by the intensity of games as the leading activity of a preschooler. The games of preschoolers go through a serious development path: from subject-manipulative games to role-playing games with rules and symbolic games.

Younger preschoolers still usually play alone. They are dominated by subject and design games, and role-playing games reproduce the actions of those adults with whom they interact on a daily basis. In middle school age, games become joint, and the main thing in them is the imitation of certain relationships between people, in particular, role-playing ones. There are certain rules of the game that children try to follow. The themes of the games are different, but family roles usually prevail (mother, father, grandmother, son, daughter), fairy-tale (wolf, hare) or professional (doctor, pilot).

At older preschool age, role-playing games become much more complicated, the set of roles increases. It is specific that real objects are often replaced by their conditional substitutes (symbols) and the so-called symbolic game arises. For the first time in the games of older preschoolers, one can notice leadership relationships, the development of organizational skills.

2.The development of intelligence. Visual-figurative thinking is replaced by verbal-logical, which implies the ability to operate with words and understand the logic of reasoning. The ability to use verbal reasoning in solving problems by a child is manifested by the phenomenon of "egocentric speech », so-called - speech "for oneself." This contributes to the concentration and retention of the child's attention and serves as a means of managing working memory. Then, gradually, egocentric speech statements are transferred to the beginning of activity and acquire the function of planning. When the planning stage becomes internal, which occurs towards the end of the preschool period, egocentric speech gradually disappears and is replaced by internal speech.

3. Personal development. The game develops reflection - the ability to adequately analyze one's actions, motives and correlate them with universal human values, as well as the actions and motives of other people. The emergence of reflection in a child causes the emergence of a desire to meet the requirements of adults, to be recognized by them. The gender-role identification of children is coming to an end: adults demand the manifestation of “male” qualities from the boy, encourage activity; from the girl they demand sincerity, sensitivity.

New motives of activity are formed: cognitive and competitive. Preschool age - the age of "why". At 3-4 years old, the child begins to ask: “What is this?”, “Why?”, And by the age of 5 - “Why?”. However, at first, the child asks most of the questions in order to attract attention, and a persistent interest in knowledge arises only by the older preschool age.

Erickson's age periodization is a doctrine of the psychosocial development of the personality, developed by a German-American psychologist. In it, he describes 8 stages, focusing on the development of the "I-individual". In his theory, he paid great attention to the concept of the ego. When Freud's theory of development was limited to childhood, Erickson believed that the personality continues to develop throughout one's life. Moreover, each stage of this development is marked by a specific conflict, only with a favorable resolution of which does the transition to new stage.

Erickson table

Erickson reduces age periodization to a table in which he indicates the stages, the age at which they occur, virtues, a favorable and unfavorable way out of the crisis, basic antipathies, a list of significant relationships.

Separately, the psychologist notes that any personality traits cannot be interpreted as good or bad. At the same time, strengths are highlighted in the age periodization according to Erickson, which he calls the qualities that help a person solve the tasks assigned to him. The weak refers to those who hinder him. When a person, following the results of the next period of development, acquires weak qualities, it becomes much more difficult for him to make the next choice, but it is still possible.

		Strengths	Weak sides	Meaningful Relationships
Infancy		Basic Trust	Basic mistrust	Mother's personality
		Autonomy	Doubt, shame	Parents
preschool age		Entrepreneurship, initiative	Guilt
		industriousness	inferiority	School, neighbors
		Identity	Role mess	Different leadership models, peer group
Youth, early maturity		Intimacy	Insulation	Sex partners, friends, cooperation, competition
Maturity		Performance		Housekeeping and division of labor
Old age	after 65 years	Integration, integrity	Hopelessness, despair	"Own circle", humanity

Biography of a scientist

Erik Homburger Erikson was born in Germany in 1902. As a child, he received a classical Jewish upbringing: his family ate only kosher food, regularly attended the synagogue, and celebrated all religious holidays. The problem of identity crisis that interested him was directly related to his life experience. His mother hid the secret of his origin from him (he grew up in a family with his stepfather). He appeared because of his mother's extramarital affair with a Dane of Jewish origin, about whom there is practically no information. It is only known that his last name was Erickson. Officially, she was married to Valdemar Salomonsen, who worked as a stockbroker.

At Jewish school, he was constantly teased for his Nordic appearance, as his biological father was Dane. IN public school he got it for the Jewish faith.

In 1930 he married Canadian dancer Joan Serson, with whom he emigrated to the United States three years later. In his writings in America, he contrasted Freud's theory, in which psychological development personality was subdivided into only five stages, its own scheme with eight stages, adding three stages of adulthood.

It is also Erickson who owns the concept of ego psychology. According to the scientist, it is our Ego that is responsible for the organization of life, healthy personal growth, harmony with the social and physical environment, becoming the source of our own identity.

In the United States in the 1950s, he became a victim of McCarthyism, as he was suspected of having links with the communists. He left Berkeley University when he was required to sign a loyalty oath. After that, he worked at Harvard and a clinic in Massachusetts. In 1970, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction for his book The Truth of Gandhi.

The scientist died in Massachusetts in 1994 at the age of 91.

Infancy

The very first stage in the age periodization of E. Erickson is infancy. It continues from the birth of a person to the first year of his life. It is on it that the foundations of a healthy personality appear, a sincere sense of trust appears.

Erickson's age periodization notes that if the infant develops this basic sense of basic trust, then he begins to perceive his environment as predictable and reliable, which is very important. At the same time, he is able to endure the absence of his mother without undue anxiety and suffering about separating himself from her. The main ritual at this stage of its development in the age periodization of E. Erickson is mutual recognition. It persists throughout life, defining relationships with others.

It is noteworthy that the methods of teaching suspicion and trust differ depending on the culture. At the same time, the method remains universal, as a result of which a person trusts others, depending on how he treated his mother. A feeling of fear, mistrust and suspicion arises if the mother is suspicious, rejects the child, showing her failure.

During this period of Erickson's age periodization, an initial positive quality is formed for the development of our Ego. This is a belief in the best, based on the attitude towards the cultural environment. It is acquired in case of successful resolution of the conflict, based on trust or distrust.

Early childhood

Early childhood - the second stage of periodization age development Erickson, which develops from one to three years. It can be exactly related to the anal phase in Freud's theory. The ongoing biological maturation provides the basis for the manifestation of the child's independence in various areas - movement, food, dressing. In his periodization of age development, E. Erickson noted that a collision with the norms and requirements of society occurs not only at the stage of potty training. Parents should expand and encourage the independence of the baby, develop his sense of self-control. Reasonable permissiveness contributes to the formation of his autonomy.

Critical ritualization becomes important at this stage, which is based on specific examples of evil and good, bad and good, forbidden and permitted, ugly and beautiful. With the successful development of the situation, a person develops self-control, will, and with a negative outcome, weak will.

preschool age

The next stage in Erickson's periodization of age development is preschool age, which he also calls the age of play. From three to six years old, kids are actively interested in all kinds of work activities, try something new, and establish contact with peers. The social world at this time insists that the child be active, it becomes important to acquire the skills to solve certain problems. There is a fundamentally new responsibility for pets, younger children in the family, and oneself.

The initiative that appears at this age is associated with enterprise, the child begins to experience the joy of independent actions and movements. It is easy to educate and train, willingly makes contact with other people, focuses on a specific goal.

In the age periodization of Erik Erickson, at this stage, a Superego is formed in a person, a new form of self-restraint appears. Parents are encouraged to recognize his rights to fantasy and curiosity, independent endeavors. This should develop his creative abilities, the boundaries of independence.

If instead children are overcome with guilt, they will not be capable of productive activities in the future.

School age

Giving a brief description of Erickson's age periodization, let's dwell on each of the stages. Stage 4 develops between the ages of six and twelve. Here already there is a confrontation with the father or mother (depending on gender), the child goes beyond the family, joining the technological side of culture.

The main terms of this stage of the theory of age periodization by E. Erickson are "taste for work", "hard work". Children are absorbed in the knowledge of the world around them. The ego-identity of a person is expressed in the formula "I am what I have learned." At school, they are introduced to discipline, develop industriousness, striving for achievements. At this stage, the child will have to learn everything that can prepare him for a productive adult life.

A sense of competence begins to form in him, if he is praised for the results achieved, he gains confidence that he will be able to learn something new, talents for technical creativity appear. When adults see only pampering in his desire for activity, there is a possibility of developing a sense of inferiority, doubts about his own abilities.

Youth

No less important in the age periodization of E. Erickson is the stage of development of youth. It lasts from 12 to 20 years, considered the main period in the psychosocial development of a person.

This is the second attempt to develop autonomy. A teenager challenges social and parental norms, learns about the existence of previously unfamiliar social roles, reflects on religion, an ideal family, and the structure of the world around him. All these questions often cause him a feeling of concern. The ideology is presented in an overly simplified form. His main task at this stage in Erickson's theory of age periodization is to collect all the knowledge about himself that was available at that time, to embody it in an image of himself, forming an Ego-identity. It must include a conscious past and an envisaged future.

The emerging changes manifest themselves in the form of a struggle between the desire to remain dependent on the care of loved ones and the desire for one's own independence. Faced with such confusion, a boy or girl strives to become like his peers, he develops stereotypical ideals and behaviors. Perhaps the destruction of strict norms in behavior and clothing, a passion for informal movements.

Dissatisfaction public values, the scientist considers abrupt social changes as a factor that hinders the development of identity, the emergence of a sense of uncertainty and inability to continue education, choose a career.

A negative way out of the crisis can be expressed in poor self-identity, a feeling of uselessness, aimlessness. Teenagers rush towards delinquent behavior. Due to excessive identification with representatives of the counterculture and stereotypical heroes, the development of their identity is suppressed.

Youth

In the periodization of Erickson's developmental psychology, the sixth stage is youth. Between the ages of 20 and 25 marks the actual start of true adulthood. A man gets a profession, starts independent life possible early marriage.

Ability to participate in love relationships includes most of the previous stages of development. Without trusting others, it will be difficult for a person to trust himself, because of insecurity and doubt, it will be difficult for him to allow others to cross his borders. Feeling inadequate, it will become difficult to get close to others, to take the initiative yourself. And in the absence of diligence, inertia will arise in relationships, mental discord can cause problems with determining a place in society.

The capacity for intimacy is perfected when a person succeeds in building partnerships, even if this requires significant compromises and sacrifices.

The positive solution to this crisis is love. Among the main principles of age periodization according to Erickson at this stage are the erotic, romantic and sexual components. Intimacy and love can be seen as an opportunity to start believing in another person, to remain the most faithful in a relationship, even if for this you have to make self-denial and concessions. This type of love is manifested in mutual respect, care, responsibility for another person.

A person may seek to avoid intimacy because of the fear of losing independence. This threatens self-isolation. The inability to build trusting and calm personal relationships leads to a feeling of social vacuum, loneliness and isolation.

Maturity

The seventh stage is the longest. It develops from 26 to 64 years. The main problem is the choice between inertia and productivity. Important point- creative self-realization.

This stage includes an intense working life, formally a new style parenthood. At the same time, there arises the ability to show interest in universal human problems, the fate of others, to think about the structure of the world, future generations. Productivity can manifest itself as the next generation caring for young people, wanting to help them find their place in life and take the right direction.

Difficulties at the stage of productivity can lead to an obsessive desire for pseudo-intimacy, a desire to protest, to resist letting your own children go into adulthood. Adults who fail to become productive withdraw into themselves. Personal comforts and needs become the main subject of concern. They concentrate on own desires. With the loss of productivity, the development of the individual as an activity of a member of society ends, interpersonal relationships become poorer, and the satisfaction of one's own needs ends.

Old age

After 65 years, the final stage begins - old age. It is characterized by a conflict of hopelessness and wholeness. This may mean accepting oneself and one's own role in the world, realizing human dignity. By this time, the main work in life is over, it's time for fun with grandchildren and reflection.

At the same time, the person begins to imagine own life as too short to achieve everything that was planned. Because of this, there may be a feeling of discontent and hopelessness, despair that life has not turned out the way you wanted, and it’s too late to start anything over. There is a fear of death.

Psychologists in reviews of Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development constantly compare his work with Sigmund Freud's classification, which includes only five stages. At all stages of development modern science Erickson's ideas were treated with increased attention, since the scheme he proposed allowed a more detailed study of the development human personality. The main claims were related to the fact that human development continues into adulthood, and not only in childhood, as Freud claimed. Related to this are the main doubts expressed by critics of Erickson's work.

American psychologist E. Erickson (1902-1994) is known as a representative of the direction ego - psychology.

He identified 8 psychosocial stages of personality development.

1. Infancy : basal trust / basal distrust . The first psychosocial stage - from birth to the end of the first year - corresponds to the oral stage, according to Freud. During this period, the foundations of a healthy personality are laid in the form of a general sense of trust, “confidence”, “internal certainty”. Erickson believes that the main condition for developing a sense of trust in people is quality of maternal care- the ability of a mother to organize the life of her little child in such a way that he has a sense of consistency, continuity, recognizability of experiences.

An infant with an established sense of basic trust perceives his environment as reliable and predictable; he can bear the absence of his mother without undue anguish and anxiety about "separating" from her. A feeling of distrust, fear, suspicion appears if the mother is unreliable, insolvent, rejects the child; it can intensify when the child ceases to be the center of her life for the mother, when she returns to those activities that she left for a while (resumes an interrupted career or gives birth to the next child). Ways to teach trust or suspicion in different cultures do not coincide, but the principle itself is universal: a person trusts society, based on a measure of trust in his mother.

Erickson shows the great importance of the mechanism of ritualization already in infancy. The main of the rituals is mutual recognition, which lasts all subsequent life and permeates all relationships with other people.

Hope (optimism about one's own cultural space) is the first positive quality of the Ego, acquired as a result of the successful resolution of the trust-distrust conflict.

2. Early childhood : autonomy / shame and doubt . This period lasts from one to three years and corresponds to anal stage, according to Freud. Biological maturation creates the basis for the emergence of new opportunities for independent action of the child in a number of areas (for example, stand, walk, climb, wash, dress, eat). From Erickson's point of view, the collision of the child with the requirements and norms of society occurs not only when the child is potty trained, but parents should gradually expand the possibilities of independent action and self-control in children. The identity of the child at this stage can be indicated by the formula: "I myself" and "I am what I can."

Reasonable permissiveness contributes to the formation of the autonomy of the child. In the case of constant excessive guardianship or, on the contrary, when parents expect too much from a child, something that lies beyond his capabilities, he experiences shame, self-doubt and self-doubt, humiliation, weak will.

Thus, with a successful resolution of the conflict, the ego includes will, self-control, and with a negative outcome, weak will. important mechanism at this stage there is a critical ritualization based on specific examples of good and evil, good and bad, permitted and forbidden, beautiful and ugly.

3. Game age: initiative / guilt . In the preschool period, which Erickson called "the age of play", from 3 to 6 years, the conflict between initiative and guilt unfolds. Children begin to be interested in various work activities, try new things, contact with peers. At this time, the social world requires the child to be active, solve new problems and acquire new skills, he has additional responsibility for himself, for younger children and pets. This is the age when the main sense of identity becomes "I am what I will be."

There is a dramatic (playing) component of the ritual, with the help of which the child recreates, corrects and learns to anticipate events. Initiative is associated with the qualities of activity, enterprise and the desire to "attack" the task, experiencing the joy of independent movement and action. At this stage, the child easily identifies with significant people (not only with parents), readily lends itself to training and education, focusing on a specific goal. At this stage, as a result of the acceptance of social prohibitions, the Super-Ego is formed, a new form of self-restraint arises.

Parents, encouraging energetic and independent undertakings of the child, recognizing his rights to curiosity and imagination, contribute to the formation of initiative, expanding the boundaries of independence, development creativity. Close adults who severely restrict freedom of choice, overly controlling and punishing children cause them too strong feeling guilt. Guilt-ridden children

passive, constrained and in the future little capable of productive work.

4. School age : industriousness / inferiority . The fourth psychosocial period corresponds to the latent period in Freud's theory. The rivalry with the parent of the same sex has already been overcome. At the age of 6 to 12, the child leaves the family and systematic education begins, including familiarization with the technological side of culture. What is universal in Erickson's concept is precisely the desire and receptivity to learning something that is significant within the framework of a given culture (the ability to handle tools, weapons, handicrafts, literacy and scientific knowledge).

The term "industriousness", "taste for work" reflects the main theme of this period, children at this time are absorbed in trying to find out what is obtained from what and how it works. The child's ego-identity is now expressed as: "I am what I have learned."

Studying at school, children are attached to the rules of conscious discipline, active participation. The ritual associated with school routines is the perfection of execution. The danger of this period is the emergence of feelings of inferiority, or incompetence, doubts about one's abilities or status among peers.

5. Youth: ego - identity / role confusion. Youth, the fifth stage in Erickson's life cycle diagram, considered the most important period in the psychosocial development of man: “Adolescence is the age of the final establishment of the dominant positive identity of the ego. It is then that the future, within foreseeable limits, becomes part of the conscious plan of life. Erickson paid great attention to adolescence and adolescence, considering it to be central to the formation of a person's psychological and social well-being. No longer a child, but not yet an adult (from 12-13 years old to about 19-20 years old in American society), the teenager is faced with new social roles and related requirements. Teenagers

evaluate the world and attitude towards it. They think, they can invent ideal family, religion, philosophical system, social structure.

There is a spontaneous search for new answers to important questions: “Who am I? ", "Where am I going? ", "Whom I want to become? ". The task of a teenager is to put together all the available to this

time of knowledge about themselves (what kind of sons or daughters they are, students, athletes, musicians, etc.) and create a single image of themselves (ego-identity), including awareness of both the past and the expected future. The perception of oneself as a young person should be confirmed by the experience of interpersonal communication.

Ritualization becomes improvisational. In addition, it highlights the ideological aspect. According to Erickson, an ideology is an unconscious set of values ​​and assumptions that reflects the religious, scientific, and political thinking of a particular culture. Ideology provides young people with simplistic but clear answers to the main questions related to identity conflict. Drastic social, political and technological changes, dissatisfaction with generally accepted social values, Erickson considers as a factor that can also seriously interfere with the development of identity, contributing to a sense of uncertainty, anxiety and severance of ties with the world. Adolescents experience a piercing sense of their uselessness, mental discord and aimlessness, sometimes rush towards a "negative" identity, delinquent (deviating) behavior. In the case of a negative resolution of the crisis, "role confusion" occurs, the vagueness of the individual's identity. Identity crisis, or role confusion, leads to an inability to choose a career or continue education, sometimes to doubts about one's own gender identity.

The reason for this may also be excessive identification with popular heroes (movie stars, superathletes, rock musicians) or representatives of the counterculture (revolutionary leaders, "skinheads", delinquent individuals), pulling out the "budding identity" from its social environment, thereby suppressing and limiting it. .

A positive quality associated with a successful exit from the crisis of adolescence is fidelity, i.e. the ability to make your choice, find your way in life and stay true to your obligations, accept social principles and stick to them.

6. Youth : achieving intimacy / isolation . The sixth psychosocial stage continues from late adolescence

to early maturity (20 to 25 years), marks the formal beginning of adulthood. In general, this is the period of obtaining a profession (“device”), courtship, early marriage, and the beginning of an independent family life.

Erickson uses the term intimacy (achieving intimacy) as multifaceted, but the main thing at the same time is maintaining reciprocity in relationships, merging with the identity of another person without fear of losing oneself. It is this aspect of intimacy that Erickson sees as a necessary condition for a lasting marriage.

The main danger at this psychosocial stage lies in excessive self-absorption or avoidance of interpersonal relationships. Failure to establish calm and trusting personal relationships leads to feelings of loneliness, social vacuum and isolation.

The positive quality that is associated with a normal exit from the intimacy/isolation crisis is love. Erickson emphasizes the importance of romantic, erotic, sexual components, but considers true love and intimacy more broadly - as the ability to entrust oneself to another person and remain faithful to this relationship, even if they require concessions or self-denial, the willingness to share all difficulties with him. This type of love is manifested in a relationship of mutual care, respect and responsibility for another person.

7. Maturity : productivity / inertia . The seventh stage falls on the middle years of life (from 26 to 64 years); her the main problem is the choice between productivity and inertness. Productivity appears as the concern of the older generation for those who will replace them - about how to help them establish themselves in life and choose right direction. Good example V this case- a sense of self-realization in a person associated with the achievements of his descendants.

If in adults the ability for productive activity is so pronounced that it prevails over inertia, then the positive quality of this stage is manifested - care.

Those adults who fail to become productive gradually move into a state of self-absorption, when the main concern is their own, personal needs and comforts. These people do not care about anyone or anything, they only indulge their desires. With the loss of productivity, the functioning of the individual as an active member of society ceases, life turns into the satisfaction of one's own needs, and interpersonal relationships become impoverished. This phenomenon - the "crisis of older age" - is expressed in a sense of hopelessness, meaninglessness

life.

8. Old age: ego integrity / desperation . The last psychosocial stage (65 years to death) ends a person's life. In almost all cultures, this period marks the beginning of old age, when a person is overcome by numerous needs: one has to adapt to the fact that physical strength is decreasing and health is deteriorating, getting used to a more modest financial situation and a secluded lifestyle, adapting to the death of a spouse and close friends, as well as to establish relationships with people of their age. At this time, the focus of a person's attention shifts from worries about the future to past experiences, people look back and reconsider their life decisions, remember their achievements and failures. Erickson was interested in this internal struggle, this internal process rethinking your own life.

According to Erickson, this last phase of life is characterized not so much by a new psychosocial crisis as by the summation, integration and evaluation of all past stages of ego development: “Only for someone who somehow took care of business and people, who experienced triumphs and defeats in life, who has been an inspiration to others and put forward ideas - only in him can the fruits of the seven preceding stages gradually ripen. I don't know of a better definition for this than ego-integration (integrity)"

The sense of ego integration is based on a person's ability to look back over their entire past life (including marriage, children and grandchildren, career, achievements, social relationships) and humbly but firmly say to themselves, "I am satisfied." The inevitability of death no longer frightens, since such people see the continuation of themselves either in descendants or in creative achievements. Erickson believes that only in old age comes true maturity and a useful feeling."wisdom of past years". But at the same time, he notes: “The wisdom of old age is aware of the relativity of all knowledge acquired by a person throughout life in one historical period. Wisdom is "awareness of the unconditional significance of life itself in the face of death itself"

At the opposite pole are people who treat their lives as a series of unrealized opportunities and mistakes. Now, at the end of their lives, they realize that it is too late to start over or look for some new ways to experience the wholeness of their Self. Lack or lack of integration manifests itself in these people in a hidden fear of death, a feeling of constant failure and concern about what "may happen." Erickson distinguishes two predominant types of mood in irritable and resentful older people: regret that life cannot be lived again, and denial of one's own shortcomings and defects by projecting them onto the outside world.

Bibliography:

1. Shapovalenko I.V. Developmental psychology (Psychology of development and developmental psychology). — M.: Gardariki, 2005.