Erik Erikson Stages in My Life

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Autobiography Paper Lifespan Development Miranda Jurgensen September 19, 2012 A man named Erik Erikson helped give light to the way we develop cognitively as humans. Erikson did this by giving an alternate view to psychosocial development. Erikson’s theory includes eight stages in our psychosocial development that explains how we come to understand interact socially, and how we come to understand ourselves. These eight stages occur throughout our lifespan. To define psychosocial development we say that the approach that encompasses change in our interactions with and understandings of one another, as well as in our knowledge and understanding of ourselves as members of society. (Feldman, 2011) The eight different stages include; Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Identity confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, and finally Integrity vs. Despair. Each of these stages describes a particular goal, concern, accomplishment and danger. Stages are linked to one another. Progress and accomplishments in later stages depend on how conflicts are resolved in earlier stages. Erikson argued that every stage presents a crisis or conflict that a person must learn to resolve. Although, no crisis is ever fully resolved, making life complicated, the issue in each stage must at least be addressed by the individual in order to successfully deal with the crisis of the next stage. (Feldman, 2011) I was born February 4, 1984 in Lincoln, Ne. My Parents had been married for approximately 5 years at the time. My mother suffered from a devastating miscarriage early in their marriage which lead to the lengthy amount of time before trying and successfully conceiving me. I am the first and only child to my father, and second child to my mother. My sister was 12 years old by the time I was

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