Childhood and Society

I was fascinated by Erikson’s theory of the eight stages of human life, from infancy to old age. At each stage, he says, we must solve a dilemma, starting with: “trust or distrust?” Our ability to mature properly depends on meeting the challenges of each stage, which then propels us to the next stage.

I was disturbed, however, by the implications of his theory: if we fail to succeed in any given stage, our future development is permanently compromised. In short, we never really fully grow up. 

A psychoanalyst who had never gone to college, Erikson was nonetheless made a Harvard professor around 1960.

His first (and most influential) book not only introduced his eight chronologically arrayed stages of human development (including the fifth stage with its famous “identity crisis”); it brilliantly portrayed the powerful messages that children received across widely different cultures (USA, Germany, Russian, and Amerindian). I was fortunate to have Erikson as my academic tutor for two years!

Erikson’s classic theoretical rubric clearly describes the positive and negative poles of social development across the life span. For the earliest years, these poles are: Trust vs. Mistrust; Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, and Initiative vs. Guilt. Freudian psychosexual theories of development and cross-cultural practices are also discussed.