Assignment on Erikson’s Stages of Life

Running head: ERIKSON’S STAGES OF LIFE
ERIKSON’S STAGES OF LIFE
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ERIKSON’S STAGES OF LIFE1
The stages of psychosocial development by Erikson are influenced and
expanded by Freud’s psychosexual theory. The theory proposed by Erikson
mentioned that people as human beings have a tendency or need to achieve
competence in certain areas of life. With reference to the psychosocial theory,
there are eight stages of development within a life span, which starts from infancy
through late adulthood. It has also been mentioned that with each stage there has
been regular arrival of crisis that needs to be resolved. The paper below discusses
the two stages of life and describes them by comparing the stages on their positive
and negative aspect. Lastly, the paper also further shows examples of real life
instances of positive and negative outcomes of the respective two mentioned stages
(Schultz & Schultz, 2017). Amongst the eight stages of psychosocial development,
the stages that are discussed in the paper are Trust versus Mistrust and Autonomy
versus doubt and shame.
Firstly, the trust versus mistrust is considered as the oral-sensory stage of
psychosocial development. This stage is mainly considered the initial year of a
person’s life, which is also considered as the main time of a person’s helplessness.
The baby or the infant is observed to be completely dependent on the mother or the
care giver present at the primary level. The infant starts getting dependent on the
caregiver for survival and seeking affection as well as to have proper security.
During this particular stage of mouth plays a very vital role. The relationship