Ego Integrity versus despair: The last stage of Erickson's theory

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1-26-2019

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Erickson’s theory’s last stage includes ego integrity versus despair, this stage focused
over the old age adults, above 65 years old, who dealt with their life reflected. As they
considered and think about their life back, some of them felt fulfilled and content, as they think
that they had experienced a significant life and has substantially contributed to the environment.
Nevertheless, some older people realized that they felt the feeling of despair, as they remember
and think more of their failures, these type of people are more fear from death as they haven’t
understood the actual meaning of life (Malone, Liu, & Valliant, 2016).
At this stage, the people were asked for what was the actual meaning or point of their life.
During this stage, the person felt the sense of integrity, as they are more proud for their
achievements and they are satisfied with what they had. With the resolution of psychosocial
crises, those people are more likely to positively reflect on their lives and achieve the wisdom,
even at the stage of imminent death (Dunkel & Harbke, 2017).
On the contrary, some people who were unsuccessful while experiencing disgust or
despair. They feel like they have been wasting their lives and had faced many regrets in their life.
The bitter feeling is more towards the things that they were unable to accomplish and regrets.
Virtues of renunciation and wisdom are created when an individual has been able to resolve the
earlier crises. The major characteristics of these virtues by broadmindedness, composure,
enjoyment of peace of mind, accurate emotional forbearance, and have no regrets (Knight,
2017).

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References
Dunkel, C., & Harbke, C. (2017). A review of measures of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial
development: Evidence for a general factor. Journal of Adult Development, 24(1), 58-76.
Knight, Z. (2017). A proposed model of psychodynamic psychotherapy linked to Erik Erikson's
eight stages of psychosocial development . Clinical psychology & psychotherapy, 24(5),
1047-1058.
Malone, J., Liu, S., & Valliant, G. (2016). Midlife Eriksonian psychosocial development: Setting
the stage for late-life cognitive and emotional health. Developmental psychology, 52(3),
496.