ndividual retains a sense of personal integrity. Piaget’s framework views the individuals as moving through a series of cognitive development stages. When the individual does so successfully, they develop strong cognitive structures and use them satisfactorily.
For Freud, the personality is comprised of the id, ego and the superego which evolve during different stages of a child’s development. Freud theorized five psychosexual stages of development, each with a major role: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital (Dacey et al. 2002, 45). Successful development does not occur if the individual does not pass through one or more of these stages. The core of successful development is based on appeasing the pleasure principle in a balanced manner. As Dacey (et al. 2002) maintains, “Personality development means moving through the five stages...each stage is discrete from the others and has a major function, which is based on a pleasure center. Unless this pleasure center is stimulated appropriately (not too much, not too little), the person becomes fixated and is unable to become a fully mature person” (28).
Erikson’s stages of lifespan development are psychosocial as opposed to Freud’s psychosexual stages. Erikson’s eight stages of the lifespan cover infancy to old age. In each stage there is a psychosocial crisis which manifests itself. For successful development to occur, the individual must successfully resolve the crisis at each stage of development. The eight stages of development and their corresponding psychosocial crises are listed below:
Infancy (Age 1) – Trust vs. mistrust
Early Childhood (Age 2-3) – Autonomy vs. shame, doubt
Preschool, nursery school (Age 4-5) – Initiative vs. guilt
Middle Childhood (Age 6-11) Industry vs. inferiority
Adolescence (Age 12-18) Identity vs. identity confusion
Young Adulthood (Age 18-35) Intimacy vs. isolation
Middle Age (Age 35-65) Generati...