A Life History

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 summers 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.

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.

V Identity versus identify confusion

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6, 108). In human development, Erikson interprets his epigenetic outlook to mean that anything that grows has a ground plan and out of this plan the individual parts arise, each part having its time of special ascendancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functioning whole (Erikson, 1959). At each stage of life, a new strength is added to a widening ensemble and reintegrated at each later stage in order to play its part in a full cycle. Growth must take place not only step-by-step but at a proper rate and in a normal sequence which adds up to a definite direction and perspective. Thus, Erikson believes that to approach human development from the perspective of stages is to have an alternative to either an animalistic or a mechanistic conception of human nature (Roazen, 1976). Mr. Weldon's adult years were filled with a number of challenges. Though he enjoyed fulfillment and success in his career as an accountant at Penn State, his personal life was in shambles. He and his wife went through an ugly divorce. His wife gained custody of their only son. As the years after the divorce passed, Mr. Weldon's son became involved in excessive drinking and drug taking. Mr. Weldon and his wife spent thousands of dollars paying

Category: Psychology - A