Life Cycle Development

My "interpreter" is named Don Weldon, a 69-year-old retired accountant who is divorced with one male son age 39. Mr. Weldon worked for Penn State University for over thirty years and resides in State College, Pennsylvania, in the winters and Lakeland, Florida, in the winters. In interviewing Mr. Weldon, his perspective on the shape of his life is most aligned with Erikson's life cycle stage development model. Before demonstrating the life experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of Mr. Weldon that illustrate this connection, it is important to provide a brief synopsis of Erikson's life cycle theory of human growth and development.

ERIK ERIKSON'S STAGE DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Erikson (1968) has identified eight separate developmental stages, which together constitute the human life cycle that comprise both an encounter and a crisis. It is the resolution of this crisis which assists the individual in moving (or developing) and achieving the next stage of life. Erikson (1968) states that each stage "becomes a crisis because incipient growth and awareness in a new part function go together with a shift in instinctual energy and yet also cause a specific vulnerability in that part" (95).

The following chart offers a summation of the crises occurring at each of Erikson's developmental stages.

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thers as opposed to withdrawing into isolation. MR. WELDON (STAGE SEVEN) Mr. Weldon's shared experiences demonstrated his belief that he is in control of his own development, despite the challenges and obstacles he must overcome. His adolescent and early adulthood experiences described above represent his successful meeting of the challenges Erikson describes in stage IV and V, industry versus inferiority and identity versus identity confusion. As opposed to continuing to drink and suffer from feelings of inferiority, Mr. Weldon applied his energies to his academic studies and successfully met the development crisis at this stage through industry. Likewise, instead of following the crowd and adopting self-destructive behaviors to "fit in", Mr. Weldon chose to minimize his drinking and achieved a sense of identity and self-worth through pursuing his educational and professional goals. When he uses the term identity, Erikson refers not only to a conscious sense of individual uniqueness, but also to what he stresses as the unconscious striving for continuity and sameness of experience. It is his belief that it is through overcoming the inescapable crises detailed above (or what one might describe in general terms as an "identity

Category: Psychology - L