Erik Erickson's theory arose from the practice of psychoanalysis. He interprets the personality structure in the same way as 3. Freud (as consisting of "It", "I", "Super-I"), the stages of personality development discovered by Freud are not rejected by Erickson, but become more complicated and, as it were, re-interpreted with positions of the new historical time. The psychosocial concept of personality development developed by Erickson shows the close relationship between the human psyche and the nature of the society in which he lives. Comparing the upbringing of children in Indian tribes with the upbringing of white American children led him to conclude that in every culture there is a special style of raising children - it is always accepted by the mother as the only correct one. This style is determined by what the society in which he lives expects from the child. Each stage of human development corresponds to its own, inherent in this society, expectations, which a person can justify or not justify. The entire childhood of a person - from birth to adolescence - is considered by Erickson as a long period of formation of a mature psychosocial identity, as a result of which a person acquires an objective sense of belonging to his social group, an understanding of the uniqueness of his individual being. The core around which personality is built is the acquisition of ego-identity.

Erickson introduced the concept of "group identity", which is formed from the first days of life. The child is focused on being included in a certain social group, begins to understand the world the way this group does. But gradually the child develops "ego-identity", a sense of stability and continuity of his "I", despite the fact that there are many processes of change. The formation of ego-identity is a long process, it includes a number of stages of personality development. Each stage is characterized by the tasks of this age, and the tasks are put forward by society. But the solution of problems is determined by the already achieved level of psychomotor development of a person and the spiritual atmosphere of the society in which a person lives. At the stage of infancy (stage 1), the main role in the life of the child is played by the mother, she feeds, cares, gives affection, care, as a result of which the child develops a basic trust in the world. Basic trust is manifested in the ease of feeding, good sleep of the child, normal bowel function, the ability of the child to calmly wait for the mother (does not scream, does not call, the child is sure that the mother will come and do what is needed). The dynamics of trust development depends on the mother. What is important here is not the quantity of food, but the quality of child care, the mother's confidence in her actions is important. If the mother is anxious, neurotic, if the situation in the family is tense, if the child is given little attention (for example, a child in an orphanage), a basic distrust of the world, stable pessimism is formed. A pronounced deficit of emotional communication with an infant leads to a sharp slowdown in the mental development of the child.

The 2nd stage of early childhood is associated with the formation of autonomy and independence, the child begins to walk, learns to control himself when performing acts of defecation; society and parents accustom the child to neatness, tidiness, begin to shame for "wet pants". Social disapproval opens the child's eyes inward, he feels the possibility of punishment, a sense of shame is formed. At the end of the stage there must be a balance of "autonomy" and "shame". This ratio will be positively favorable for the development of the child, if the parents do not suppress the desires of the child, do not beat them for wrongdoing. At the age of 3-6 years, at the 3rd stage, the child is already convinced that he is a person, as he runs, knows how to speak, expands the area of ​​​​mastering the world, the child develops a sense of enterprise, initiative, which is laid in the child's game. The game is very important for the development of the child, that is, it forms initiative, creativity, the child masters relationships between people through the game, develops his mental abilities: will, memory, thinking, etc. But if parents strongly suppress the child, do not pay attention to his games, this negatively affects the development of the child, contributes to the consolidation of passivity, insecurity, feelings of guilt. At primary school age (4th stage), the child has already exhausted the possibilities of development within the family, and now the school introduces the child to knowledge about future activities, transfers the technological experience of culture. If a child successfully masters knowledge, new skills, he believes in his own strength, he is confident, calm, but failures at school lead to the appearance, and sometimes to consolidation, of a feeling of inferiority, disbelief in his own strength, despair, loss of interest in learning. In case of inferiority, the child, as it were, returns to the family again, it is a refuge for him, if the parents with understanding try to help the child overcome difficulties in learning. If parents only scold and punish for bad marks , the feeling of inferiority in a child is sometimes fixed for the rest of his life. In adolescence (stage 5), the central form of ego-identity is formed. Rapid physiological growth, puberty, concern about how he looks in front of others, the need to find his professional vocation, abilities, skills - these are the questions that confront a teenager, and these are society's requirements for a teenager about self-determination. At this stage, all critical past moments rise up again. If in the early stages the child has formed autonomy, initiative, trust in the world, confidence in his usefulness, significance, then the teenager successfully creates a holistic form of ego-identity, finds his "I", self-recognition from others. Otherwise, identity diffusion occurs, the teenager cannot find his "I", is not aware of his goals and desires, there is a return, regression to infantile, childish, dependent reactions, a vague but stable feeling of anxiety appears, a feeling of loneliness, emptiness, a constant expectation of something that can change life, but the person himself does not actively undertake anything, there is a fear of personal communication and an inability to emotionally influence persons of the opposite sex, hostility, contempt for the surrounding society, a feeling of "non-recognition of oneself" from the people around. If a person has found himself, then identification is facilitated. At the 6th stage (youth), the search for a life partner becomes relevant for a person, close cooperation with people, strengthening ties with his social group, a person is not afraid of depersonalization, he mixes his identity with other people, a feeling of closeness, unity, cooperation, intimacy appears with certain people. However, if the diffusion of identity passes to this age, the person becomes isolated, isolation and loneliness are fixed. 7th - the central stage - the adult stage of personality development. The development of identity goes on throughout life, there is an impact on the part of other people, especially children, they confirm that they need you. Positive symptoms of this stage: a person invests himself in good, beloved work and care for children, is satisfied with himself and life. If there is no one to pour out one's "I" on (no favorite work, family, children), then the person is devastated, stagnation, inertia, psychological and physiological regression is outlined. As a rule, such negative symptoms are strongly pronounced if the personality has been prepared for this throughout the course of its development, if there have always been negative choices at the stages of development. After 50 years (8th stage), a complete form of ego-identity is created on the basis of the entire path of personality development, a person rethinks his whole life, realizes his "I" in spiritual reflections about the past years. A person must understand that his life is a unique destiny that does not need to be redone, a person "accepts" himself and his life, realizes the need for a logical conclusion of life, shows wisdom, a detached interest in life in the face of death. If "acceptance of oneself and life" has not happened, a person feels disappointed, loses the taste for life, feels that life has gone wrong, in vain.

According to Erickson, a person experiences eight psychosocial crises throughout life, specific for each age, the favorable or unfavorable outcome of which determines the possibility of the subsequent flourishing of the personality.

The first crisis a person experiences in the first year of life. It is related to whether or not the basic physiological needs of the child are met by the person caring for him. In the first case, the child develops a feeling of deep trust in the world around him, and in the second - distrust of him.

The second crisis is connected with the first learning experience, especially with teaching the child to cleanliness. If the parents understand the child and help him control the natural functions, the child gains an experience of autonomy. On the contrary, too strict or too inconsistent external control leads to the development of shame or doubt in the child, mainly associated with the fear of losing control over his own body.

The third crisis corresponds to the second childhood. At this age, the child's self-assertion takes place. The plans that he constantly makes and which he is allowed to carry out, contribute to the development of his sense of initiative. On the contrary, experiencing repeated failures and irresponsibility can lead him to resignation and guilt.

The fourth crisis occurs at school age. At school, the child learns to work, preparing for future tasks. Depending on the atmosphere prevailing in the school and the methods of education adopted, the child develops a taste for work or, on the contrary, a feeling of inferiority, both in terms of the use of means and opportunities, and in terms of his own status among his comrades.

The fifth crisis is experienced by adolescents of both sexes in search of identification (assimilation of patterns of behavior of other people that are significant for a teenager). This process involves bringing together the adolescent's past experiences, his potentialities and the choices he must make. The adolescent's inability to identify, or the difficulties associated with it, can lead to "dispersion" or confusion about the roles that the adolescent plays or will play in the affective, social and professional spheres.

The sixth crisis is peculiar to young adults. It is associated with the search for closeness with a loved one, with whom he will have to go through the cycle of "work-bearing children-leisure" in order to ensure that his children develop properly.

The absence of such experience leads to the isolation of a person and his closure on himself.

The seventh crisis is experienced by a person at the age of forty. It is characterized by the development of a sense of the preservation of the family (generativity), which is expressed mainly in "interest in the next generation and its upbringing." This period of life is characterized by high productivity and creativity in various fields. If, on the contrary, the evolution of married life goes in a different way, it can freeze in a state of pseudo-intimacy (stagnation), which dooms the spouses to exist only for themselves, with the risk of impoverishment of interpersonal relationships.

The eighth crisis is experienced during aging. It marks the end of the previous life path, and the resolution depends on how this path was traveled. A person's achievement of wholeness is based on summing up the results of his past life and realizing it as a single whole, in which nothing can be changed. If a person cannot bring his past actions together, he ends his life in fear of death and in despair at the impossibility of starting life anew.

Introduction

Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994) - one of the outstanding ego psychologists of the 20th century, post-Freudian. He was interested in the ego and its adaptive abilities in the development of the individual. E. Erickson borrowed a lot from the theories of his predecessors in psychoanalysis, and, remaining within the framework of the psychoanalytic tradition, he developed his own periodization of personality development, his psychoanalytic concept of childhood.

Childhood and Society is his first book, published by Erickson in 1950 (reprinted 1963). Its appearance is due to the practice of psychoanalysis, as the author noted in it. The focus of this book is on the relationship between childhood and social life, Erickson provides research on childhood in two tribes of African Indians, the Sioux and Yurok, he talks about ego development, crises, conflicts, and discusses adolescence and identity.

Erickson speaks of his book as a "conceptual travelogue", he emphasizes that this is a book about historical processes "Childhood and Society" was popular, and it was thanks to this book that he was recognized as a leading representative of ego psychology.

Epigenetic orientation of E. Erickson's theory

The theory of psychosocial, or as it is also called epigenetic development originated from psychoanalysis.

Erickson believes that a person throughout his life goes through several stages that are universal for all mankind. The opening of these stages is regulated by the epigenetic principle of maturation. Under the epigenetic principle, E. Erickson means, firstly, that the personality develops gradually, there is a transition from stage to stage due to the desire of the individual to develop and move forward, and, secondly, society, according to Erickson, is arranged in such a way that the development of social human capabilities is always approved by society, it tries to maintain and maintain this trend.

In his first book "Childhood and Society" E. Erickson divides a person's whole life into "eight ages of a person", that is, at the stage of psychosocial development of the ego. E. Erickson argues that the stages are the outcome of an epigenetic unfolding of a certain “personality plan”, which is transmitted genetically.

The epigenetic principle, as well as the epigenetic concept of development, is that each stage of a person's life, his specific life cycle, occurs at a specific moment for it, or, as Erickson says, at a “critical period”. No less important is the fact that only through the consistent passage of such critical periods in its development, the personality is fully formed. It should be emphasized that each stage is accompanied by a psychological crisis specific for that age and a special task of development. Each task of development put forward by society consists in a certain correlation between the two extreme poles. The result of the struggle is the development of personality. When balance is reached, we can talk about acquiring a new form of ego-identity. In this case, the solution of problems is reduced to depends on the level of development of the individual himself.

I would like to stop and talk a little more about each of the eight stages of psychosexual development.

The first stage (I) is oral-respiratory-sensory, as E. Erickson calls it. But it is generally accepted to call it the oral-sensory stage. It consists of two phases, like Z. Freud, but E. Erickson in his book designates the second phase as the Second stage (II), which has a different mode than the first stage.

E. Erickson interprets the concept of organ modus like Z. Freud - as a zone of concentration of sexual energy, but unlike him, E. Erickson is not so much interested in the organ itself as in its direction of functioning. For example, if in infancy the erogenous zone is the mouth of a child, then Freud considers only the erogenous zone itself, i.e. mouth, and E. Erickson the ability to receive (toget) through the mouth.

Now, we can take a closer look at this stage. As mentioned above, it consists of two phases (stages I and II):

In the first phase (stage I) of this stage, the organ - the mouth is considered an erogenous zone, it also forms a certain mode of development, namely the dominant qualities of the personality. The modality of the mouth determines sucking, that is, receiving (toget) food through the mouth. Receiving is the first social modality of the infant, which he comprehends in life. The optimal cumulative situation, which implies the baby's readiness to receive what is given, lies in the mutual regulation of the baby with the mother, which will allow him to develop ways to receive as she develops ways to give. For such coordination for the baby, the highest reward of libidinal pleasure is "oral" pleasure. As E. Erickson writes, “Apparently, the mouth and the nipple are just the centers of the general aura of cordial warmth and reciprocity, which is enjoyed and responded to by relaxation not only by these central organs, but also by both whole organisms.”

At this stage, the baby lives and loves only through the mouth, and the mother through her breasts. The dominant mode of the organ at this stage is the first of five - "incorporative 1", while the presence of other 4 modes ("incorporative 2", "retentive", "eliminative", "intrusive") cannot be rejected, because for the functioning of some or bodily zones with inlet-outlet openings, it is necessary to have all modes in auxiliary roles.

According to E. Erickson, a baby, receiving what is given, and learning to force another to do what he would like, develops the necessary basis of his ego, in order to later become the one who gives. This can only be achieved through mutual relaxation. If this does not happen, then the situation of mutual regulation breaks up into attempts to control each other through coercion or fantasy, and in this case, the baby will try to get what he did not get in the main way at that moment in the stage - by sucking, and he will do this through his disorderly activity.

In the second phase (stage II; age: Birth - 1 year), the main organ is also the mouth, but biting, not sucking, acts as a modality, this is due to the fact that the child is teething. The social modality in this phase is taking (taking) and holding (holdingonto) different objects. The mode of the organ is the 2nd mode "incorporate 2". At this stage, the child must improve the mechanisms of grasping, exploring, and also appropriating everything that will be within his reach. Such improvement occurs as he learns to roll from his back to his tummy, change positions, rise and sit in his crib. However, it is in this period that "good" and "evil" appear in the child's life, of course, if the basic trust was not previously affected at the first stage. Even the most benevolent environment, as E. Erickson says, will not protect the child from traumatic change. Here the development of impulses and mechanisms of grasping, teething, with the possible process of weaning and separation from the mother, collide. According to E. Erickson, the moment of weaning due to biting can be the beginning of separation, when the child's anger, directed at the teeth that torment him, directed against the depriving mother, merges with the rage caused by the impotence of his own body, and leads to experience (sado-masochistic character) - strong confusion, which leaves behind a feeling that once upon a time a person destroyed the unity with the maternal environment.

Therefore, when a child is suddenly weaned, the mother must compensate for this with her emotional support, soothing presence, tenderness and affection. With the loss of mother's love, the child goes on the path of infantile depression or a chronic state of sadness, which will give his whole future life a depressive tinge.

At this stage, the conflict “basic trust versus basic distrust” arises, and depending on which of the poles it is resolved in favor of, a special developmental task is determined, as a result of which the infant develops basic feelings of trust or distrust towards himself and the world.

The second stage (stage III; age: 1-3 years), or the third stage according to E. Erickson is called anal-urethral-muscular (generally accepted, as well as anal-muscular). The erogenous zone of this stage is the excretory organs, which have their own modality - emptying the intestines and bladder, from which children enjoy this stage. Also at this stage, new social modalities are developing - letting go (lettinggo) and holding (holdingon). Thanks to the development of the muscular system and more regular stool, the child becomes available the ability to voluntarily relax, push and hold and alternate them at will. The anal zone is the modal zone of two modes in conflict with each other, which subsequently must replace each other. The modes of the organ are "retentive" and "eliminative". At this age, children either store or hide various objects, or throw them away from themselves, all this is explained by retentive-emilinative modes.

If a child at this stage of his development is deprived of the opportunity to satisfy his need in a relaxed and uncoerced way, then he will seek satisfaction and control, regressing, or falsely progressing, because he will feel deprived of power in his body and powerless in the outside world.

At this stage, a second conflict arises in which autonomy struggles against shame and doubt. In order for the conflict of this stage to unfold in positive side, the infant must feel that his basic trust is not under threat. Depending on in whose favor the conflict is resolved, its developmental task is determined, as a result of which the infant can acquire such qualities as independence and independence, or shame and doubt in his actions.

The third stage (stage IV according to E. Erickson; age: 3-6 years) is called locomotor-genital. The erogenous zone is the genitals. The modality is the interest in the genitals of both sexes. A new social modality of “doing” (“maling”) appears, meaning such activities that will bring benefits, advantages, etc., i.e. activities that bring personal success. At this stage, the mode of the organ "intrusive" dominates. It is he who serves as a sign of fantasies and "similar" activities. They all consist in intrusion (intrusion) into other bodies, for example, through assertive and aggressive speaking, an invasion is made into the minds and ears of other people. At this stage, the boys are faced with the understanding that in the sexual sphere he is inferior to his parents. Some of the consequences of this understanding constitute the Oedipus complex, which was described by Z. Freud. Girls, on the other hand, are faced with the realization that they do not have a penis like boys do, so they become unable to support dreams of sexual equality. With regard to social modality, in boys the emphasis on "doing" in phallic-intrusive ways remains, while in girls it shifts to "doing" with the help of pestering and provoking, or by making oneself attractive. In this case, the child develops initiative in himself.

However, "Oedipal" desires lead to vague fantasies that border on violence and murder, the consequence of which is a deep sense of guilt. This situation suggests that a third conflict is being resolved - the conflict between initiative and guilt. This concludes the theory of infantile sexuality.

The fourth stage (stage V according to E. Erickson; age: 6-12 years) E. Erickson calls the period of psychosexual moratorium, this stage is also known in psychoanalysis as latent. There is a rudimentary generative mode here. With the onset of the latent period, the developed child forgets or sublimates the need to "do" and learns to engage in useful work and seeks recognition. We can say about this period - "dormant sexuality." The danger of the stage lies in feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. As E. Erickson says, “in this case, the child experiences despair from his ineptitude in the world of tools and sees himself doomed to mediocrity or inadequacy”

In the Latent stage, the next conflict is looking for solutions - the conflict of industriousness against the feeling of inferiority, in connection with which, the task of development is being solved.

Fifth stage (Age: 12-19 years old) - Teenage. The main event of the child's normally developing personality is the establishment of ego identity or integration, which is the accumulated experience of the ego's ability to integrate all identifications with libido problems. Thus, “the sense of ego identity is the confidence that internal identity and continuity is combined with the identity and continuity of the individual’s meaning for others, revealed in the real perspective of a “career”” (E. Erickson, p. 250). In other words, a teenager is aware of the image of his "I", as well as his place in the world, he clearly understands who he is. But there is a danger of mixing roles, there is often a doubt about gender identity, but more often teenagers are worried about the inability to understand their professional identity.

Here the teenager needs to solve all his old problems and gain the integrity of the personality. Therefore, the conflict of this stage is the struggle between identity and confusion of roles. As a result, the task becomes awareness of oneself and one’s place in the world, and the negative pole is the lack of confidence in the awareness of one’s own “I”

The sixth stage (Age: 20-25 years) is called Early Maturity (or Youth). As E. Erickson writes in his monograph, “The newly minted adult, who appeared as a result of searching for and stubbornly defending his own identity, is full of desire and is ready to merge his identity with the identity of others.” This suggests that the stage has come to search for your life partner. The desire for this is the mastery of all their modalities of behavior. All modes of the organ are already subordinate to the individual himself, and do not dictate the path of development to him, as in the previously analyzed stages. The danger at this stage is loneliness or isolation; people whose task of development has become loneliness are usually ready to isolate or destroy those people who seem to them dangerous to themselves. This speaks of echoes of not accepting one's identity at the previous stage. Also at this stage we can talk about genitality for the last time, because at this stage it is true genitality that manifests itself. You should not understand love as a sexual attraction, said E. Erickson, he also believed that the appearance of such a mature feeling of love prepares the transition to the next stage.

The conflict at this stage is the struggle between intimacy and isolation. The conflict is resolved by solving the problem of development in one direction or another.

The seventh stage (Age: 26-64 years) is called Medium Maturity (or Maturity). E. Erickson says that a mature person wants to feel needed, and maturity needs approval from his children and grandchildren, whom he must take care of. By generativity, E. Erickson understands a complete interest in how the life of the new generation works and in the interest of his instruction. In cases where it is not possible to achieve generativity, a regression is formed with the need for pseudo-closeness, most often with a sense of impoverishment of personal life.

There is a conflict between generativity and stagnation. The task of this period is the confrontation of the creative forces of man against stagnation in life.

Eighth stage (Age: 65 years - death) - Late maturity (Old age). The last stage includes the integrity of the ego, E. Erickson does not give a clear definition, but gives several examples. Ego integrity is confidence in the pursuit of order and meaning. This is post-narcissistic love (not self) as an experience. This is the acceptance of one's cycle of life as correct and true, not requiring change. This - a good relationship with lifestyle and past activities, hobbies. In this case, “death loses its torment,” as E. Erickson put it. But there is another outcome of life, this is the absence or loss of all the accumulated integration of the ego, it is expressed in the fear of death. Despair expresses thoughts that there is little time left to try to change something.

In the stage of Old Age, either a person acquires a holistic view of himself, or he is disappointed in life and despairs. This is the task of the development of this period. And it is resolved to the conflict between the integrity of the ego and despair.

Comparative characteristics of the views of E. Erickson and Z. Freud

Erik Erikson was one of the followers of Sigmund Freud. He borrowed a lot from his theory, but also proposed his own theory.

You need to start with what E. Erickson says about psychosocial development, unlike Z. Freud, he puts forward his position on psychosexual development.

But at the same time, E. Erikson explains the structure of personality in the same way as Z. Freud did.

Their methods of studying the psyche differed, E. Erickson - a psycho-historical method, E. Freud worked through psychoanalysis.

The most important difference between the concept of E. Erickson is the allocation of eight stages of psychosocial development of the personality, Z. Freud has only five of them, but the first 4 stages have a similar idea.

They both used the concept of sexual libido energy.

E. Erickson considers the periods from birth to death, while Z. Freud limits the development of personality to eighteen years.

In Z. Freud, a child develops only in a certain system: father, mother and child, while E. Erickson pays more attention to the child in a socio-cultural environment.

Erickson talks about the crises and developmental challenges that every person faces as they go through a particular stage of development.

These scientists interpreted the influence of the unconscious on human life in different ways. E. Erickson tried to understand what are the abilities of a person to overcome any difficulties. Z. Freud, on the other hand, associated this influence with mental trauma experienced in childhood.

As mentioned above, they interpret the mode of the organ in the same way in different ways. I repeat, for Z. Freud, the mode of an organ was the organ itself, as a zone of concentration of sexual energy, and for E. Erickson, the mode of an organ was its direction of functioning.

Types of identity

Since each specific stage of psychosocial development has its own social expectations, which the individual may or may not justify by solving the problem of his development, then he is either accepted by society or society rejects him. In connection with this position, E. Erickson decided to single out two main concepts of his concept - these are the concepts of group identity and ego-identity.

Group identity is the upbringing of a child's life from the first day of his life, oriented towards inclusion in a social group, which is aimed at forming a worldview characteristic of this group.

Ego identity - has the property to be formed simultaneously with group identity. Ego-identity is such a sense of identity that forms a sense of stability, continuity and identity of one's "I". We can say that ego-identity is the integrity of the personality.

The main stages of personality formation (mode, main conflict, basic feelings)

The concept of E. Erickson's organ modus was discussed in the first section, but let's repeat.

The mode of an organ is a zone of concentration of sexual energy, which Erickson understands as the functional orientation of the organ itself, but not as the organ itself.

To give an example again, if in infancy the erogenous zone is the mouth of a child, and the modality is, for example, sucking or biting, then the direction of functioning will be the ability to receive (toget) or taking (taking) and holding (holdingonto). It is also called social modalities.

If we consider the epigenetic map that E. Erickson draws up in the course of writing the book, we will see that he gave names to five modes, each of which means a social modality. Each zone interacts with everything and modes. Erickson associates these modes with three zones - "oral-sensory", "anal", "genital". But at each stage of development only one mode dominates.

Incorporated 1 - (from lat. incorporatio) Incorporation is inclusion in its composition, accession.

Incorporated 2

Retentive - detention, retention, containment.

Eliminative - removal, elimination, release.

Intrusive - (from lat. intrusus - pushed) - this is an active introduction into something.

The main conflict that can be identified by analyzing E. Erickson's theory of psychosocial development is the very fact of overcoming the problems that arise as a result of correlating one mode with any zone.

Initially, basic trust is formed in an infant primarily through the mother's breast, mother's care, affection and love.

E. Erickson says that the baby needs to gain basic trust in himself and in the world in order to develop normally further.

Types of crises. Their characteristics and meaning

The crisis, according to E. Erickson, is "turning points", "moments of choice between progress and regression, integration and delay." In other words, crises are necessary to achieve a certain level of maturity in order to be able to meet the requirements of society, which makes its social demands on the individual.

Thus, a crisis is a necessary sudden turn, followed by either the development of the personality or its regression.

To resolve the crisis, throughout all 8 stages, the individual faces conflicts, the struggle in which takes place between two poles, between two extreme possibilities for the outcome of events in the future of the individual. Thus, these conflicts are the tasks of development, because, as soon as we solve the conflict, the individual will face a task. The result of the struggle is the development of personality. But the result is not always positive in the sieve of various causes, therefore, a personality, developing, can regress at a certain moment.

We analyzed the main conflicts and tasks in more detail in the first part of this analysis of the monograph, where we indicated their characteristics, so we will only repeat ourselves. The solution to these problems is the solution to the crisis.

Basic trust versus basic distrust.

Autonomy versus shame and doubt.

Initiative versus guilt.

Industriousness versus feelings of inferiority

Identity versus role confusion

Proximity versus isolation

Generativity versus stagnation

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Let us consider the point of view of E. Erickson on the development of the psyche in the course of ontogeny.

E. Erickson distinguishes eight stages. We will study them in detail and summarize them with the help of figures 1, 2 and 3.

Fundamentals of the theory of E. Erickson

The theory of E. Erickson is developed by their psychoanalysis, however, unlike the theory of Z. Freud, it is psychosocial, which is intended to emphasize the influence of society and culture on the child's psyche.

When developing the theory, E. Erickson used the psychohistorical method.

At every stage age development, from the point of view of E. Erickson, an individual can both be included in society and rejected by it, depending on whether he fulfills the requirements of society.

Thus, important concepts of this theory arise - ego-identity and group identity.

Tasks of age stages

1. Infancy is the formation of trust in the world.
2. Early age - the struggle for their independence and self-sufficiency.
3. Before school age- development of initiative.
4. Primary school age - the formation and development of diligence.
5. Adolescence is self-awareness.
6. Adolescence is the establishment of friendships.
7. The mature period is the struggle against stagnation.
8. Old age is a holistic view of the life path.

Age periodization according to E. Erickson

1. Oral-sensory stage (0 - 1 year). "I trust, I don't trust."
2. Muscular-anal (1 - 3 years). "Can I control my behavior?"
3. Locomotor-genital (3 - 6 years). "Can I be independent from my parents?"
4. Latent (6 - 14 years). "Can I be so skilled as to survive and adapt to the world?"
5. Adolescence and youth (14 - 20 years). “Who am I?”, “What are my views, beliefs, positions?”. Egoidentity is a set of ideas about oneself, which makes it possible to feel one's uniqueness.
6. Youth, early adulthood (20-35 years). “Can I give myself completely to another person?”
7. Adulthood (35 - 60 years). “What can I offer other generations?”
8. Maturity (from 60 years). “Am I satisfied with my life?”

The theory of E. Erickson, as well as the theory of A. Freud, arose from the practice of psychoanalysis. As Erikson himself admitted, in post-war America, where he lived after emigrating from Europe, such phenomena as anxiety in young children, apathy among the Indians, confusion among war veterans, cruelty among the Nazis required explanation and correction. In all these phenomena, the psychoanalytic method reveals conflict, and the works of Z. Freud made neurotic conflict the most studied aspect of human behavior. Erickson, however, believed that the listed mass phenomena are only analogues of neuroses. In his opinion, the foundations of the human "I" are rooted in social organization society.

Erickson created a psychoanalytic concept about the relationship between the "I" and society. At the same time, his concept is the concept of childhood. It is human nature to have a long childhood. Moreover, the development of society leads to a lengthening of childhood. “Long childhood makes a person a virtuoso in technical and intellectual sense, but it also leaves a trace of emotional immaturity in him for life,” he wrote.

E. Erikson interprets the structure of personality in the same way as Z. Freud. If at some point our Everyday life, he wrote, we stop and ask ourselves what we just dreamed about, then a number of unexpected discoveries await us: we are surprised to notice that our thoughts and feelings make constant fluctuations in one direction or the other from the state of relative equilibrium. Deviating to one side from this state, our thoughts give rise to a series of fantastic ideas about what we would like to do; deviating in the other direction, we suddenly find ourselves under the power of thoughts about duty and obligations, we already think about what we should do, and not about what we would like to do; the third position, as if "dead point" between these extremes, is more difficult to remember. Here, where we are least aware of ourselves, according to Erickson, we are most of all ourselves. Thus, when we want it is "It", when we must - it is "Super-I", and "dead point" is "I". Constantly balancing between the extremes of these two instances, "I" uses defense mechanisms that allow a person to come to a compromise between impulsive desires and the "overwhelming force of conscience."

As emphasized in a number of publications, Erickson's work marks the beginning of a new method of studying the psyche - psychohistorical, which is the application of psychoanalysis to the study of the development of the individual, taking into account the historical time in which she lives. Using this method, Erickson analyzed the biographies of Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Bernard Shaw, Thomas Jefferson and other prominent people, as well as the life histories of contemporaries - adults and children. The psychohistorical method demands equal attention both to the psychology of the individual and to the character of the society in which the individual lives. Erickson's main task was to develop a new psychohistorical theory of personality development, taking into account a specific cultural environment.

In addition to clinical studies, Erickson conducted ethnographic field studies of child rearing in two Native American tribes and compared them with child rearing in US urban families. He discovered, as already mentioned, that each culture has its own particular style of motherhood, which each mother perceives as the only correct one. However, as Erickson emphasized, the style of motherhood is always determined by what exactly the social group to which he belongs - his tribe, class or caste - expects from the child in the future. According to Erickson, each stage of development corresponds to its own expectations inherent in a given society, which an individual may or may not justify, and then he is either included in society or rejected by it. These considerations of E. Erickson formed the basis of the two most important concepts of his concept - group identity and ego identity.

Group identity It is formed due to the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on including him in a given social group, on developing a worldview inherent in this group.

ego identity is formed in parallel with the group and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his "I" despite the changes that occur with a person in the process of his growth and development.

The formation of ego-identity or, otherwise creating, the integrity of a person, continues throughout a person’s life and goes through a number of stages, and the stages of Z. Freud are not rejected by Erickson, but become more complicated and, as it were, re-interpreted from the perspective of a new historical time.

In his first major and most famous work, Childhood and Society, Erickson wrote that the study of personal individuality is becoming the same strategic task of the second half of the 20th century as was the study of sexuality in Freud's time, at the end of the 19th century. "Different historical periods," he wrote, "give us the opportunity to see in temporary aggravations different aspects of the essentially inseparable parts of the human personality."

Each stage of the life cycle is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society. Society also determines the content of development at different stages of the life cycle. However, the solution of the problem, according to Erickson, depends both on the level of psychomotor development already achieved by the individual, and on the general spiritual atmosphere of the society in which this individual lives.

In table. 1 shows the stages of the life path of a person according to E. Erickson.

Table 1.

The task of infancy formation of basic trust in the world, overcoming feelings of disunity and alienation. A task early age - struggle against feelings of shame and strong doubts in one's actions for one's own independence and autonomy. A task playing age - developing an active initiative and at the same time experiencing guilt and moral responsibility for their desires. IN school period a new task arises - the formation of industriousness and the ability to handle tools, which is opposed by the awareness of one's own ineptitude and uselessness. IN adolescence and early adolescence the task of the first integral awareness of oneself and one's place in the world appears; the negative pole in solving this problem is the lack of confidence in understanding one's own "I" ("diffusion of identity"). A task the end of youth and the beginning of maturity - finding a life partner and establishing close friendships that overcome feelings of loneliness. A task mature period - the struggle of the creative forces of man against inertia and stagnation. Period old age characterized by the formation of the final integral idea of ​​oneself, one's life path, as opposed to possible disappointment in life and growing despair.

The solution of each of these problems, according to Erickson, comes down to establishing a certain dynamic relationship between the two extreme poles. The development of personality is the result of the struggle of these extreme possibilities, which does not subside during the transition to the next stage of development. This struggle at a new stage of development is suppressed by the solution of a new, more urgent task, but incompleteness makes itself felt during periods of life's failures. The balance achieved at each stage marks the acquisition of a new form of ego-identity and opens up the possibility of inclusion of the subject in a wider social environment. When raising a child, one should not forget that "negative" feelings always exist and serve as dynamic countermembers of "positive" feelings throughout life.

The transition from one form of selfishness to another causes identity crises. Crises, according to Erickson, are not a personality disease, not a manifestation of a neurotic disorder, but "turning points", "moments of choice between progress and regression, integration and delay."

first stage personality development. Erickson calls oral-sensory. Psychoanalytic practice convinced Erickson that mastering life experience carried out on the basis of the child's primary bodily impressions. That is why he attached such great importance to the concepts of "organ mode" and "modality of behavior." The concept of "organ mode" is defined by Erickson, following Freud, as a zone of concentration of sexual energy. For Erickson, it is not the organ itself that is important, but the direction of its functioning. So, in infancy, the erogenous zone is the child's mouth. For Erickson, the orientation of the functioning of this organ is important - the ability receive through the mouth. The organ with which sexual energy is connected at a particular stage of development will create a certain mode of development, i.e. the formation of the dominant personality trait. In accordance with erogenous zones there are modes pull in, hold, intrusion And inclusions. Zones and their modes, Erickson emphasizes, are at the center of any cultural parenting system that emphasizes the child's early bodily experience. Unlike Freud, for Erikson the mode of the organ is only the primary point, the impetus for mental development. When society, through its various institutions (family, school, etc.), gives a special meaning to a given mode, then its meaning is “alienated”, detached from an organ and transformed into behavioral modality. Thus, through modes, a connection is made between psychosexual (according to Freud) and psychosocial (according to Erickson) personality development.

The peculiarity of modes, due to the mind of nature, is that another object or person is necessary for their functioning. So, in the first days of life, the child "lives and loves through the mouth," and the mother "lives and loves through her breasts." In the act of feeding, the child receives the first experience of reciprocity: his ability to "receive by mouth" meets with a response from the mother.

It should be emphasized once again that for Erickson, it is not the oral zone that is important, but the oral mode of interaction, which consists not only in the ability to "receive the least! Mouth", but also through all sensory zones. For Erickson, the mouth is the focus of the child's relationship to the world only at the very first stages of his development. So, the mode of an organ - "receive" - ​​breaks away from the zone of its origin and spreads to other sensory sensations (tactile, visual, auditory, etc.), and as a result, a mental modality of behavior is formed - "take in".

Like Freud, Erickson associates the second phase of infancy with teething. From this point on, the ability to "take in" becomes more active and directed. It is characterized by the "biting" mode. Being alienated, the modus manifests itself in all types of activity of the child, displacing passive receiving. “Eyes, initially ready to receive impressions as they come naturally, learn to focus, isolate and “snatch” objects from a more vague background, follow them,” Erickson wrote. “In a similar way, ears learn to recognize significant sounds, localize them and control the search turn towards them, in the same way that the arms are taught to stretch purposefully, and the hands to grip tightly. As a result of the distribution of the modus to all sensory zones, a social modality of behavior is formed - "taking and holding things." It manifests itself when the child learns to sit. All these achievements lead to the child singling out himself as a separate individual.

The formation of this first form of ego-identity, like all subsequent ones, is accompanied by a developmental crisis. His indicators at the end of the first year of life: general tension due to teething, increased awareness of himself as a separate individual, weakening of the mother-child dyad as a result of the mother's return to professional pursuits and personal interests. This crisis is more easily overcome if, by the end of the first year of life, the ratio between the child's basic trust in the world and the basic distrust is in favor of the first.

Signs of social trust in an infant are light feeding, deep sleep, normal bowel movements. but psychological symptom trust is served by the child's ability to wait, his ability to endure a delay in the satisfaction of his desire. The first social achievements according to Erickson also include the child's willingness to let the mother disappear from view without undue anxiety or anger, since her existence has become an inner certainty, and her reappearance is predictable. It is this constancy, continuity and identity of life experience that forms in the young child a rudimentary sense of his own identity.

What are the conditions for the formation of a child's trust in the world? The dynamics of the relationship between trust and distrust of the world, or, in the words of Erickson, "the amount of faith and hope learned from the first life experience", is determined not by the characteristics of feeding, but by the quality of child care, the presence of mother's love and tenderness, manifested in caring for the baby . An important condition at the same time, the mother's confidence in her actions is. “A mother will create a sense of faith in her child by a type of treatment that combines sensitive concern for the needs of the child with a firm sense of complete personal trust in him within the framework of the lifestyle that exists in this culture,” Erickson emphasized.

The famous Japanese educator Massaru Ibuka in his work on early development child (1996), wrote:

"In the modern world, the first thing that catches your eye is the lack of trust between people, hence the chaos in society, violence, environmental problems. No riches and comforts in life will bring us peace and happiness until there is trust between people. If the principle of trust in people is imbibed with mother's milk, the child will grow up as a person capable of taking responsibility for the future society. The modern education system attaches too much importance to exams and marks, but ignores and does not encourage trust in people ... The 21st century will be built by those who trust others "(World of Education, 1996. L" 4).

Erickson found different "trust patterns" and childcare traditions in different cultures. In some cultures, the mother shows tenderness very emotionally, she always feeds the baby when he cries or is naughty, does not swaddle him. In other cultures, on the contrary, it is customary to swaddle tightly, let the child scream and cry, "so that his lungs are stronger." The last way of leaving, according to Erickson, is characteristic of Russian culture. This explains, according to Erickson, the special expressiveness of the eyes of Russian people. A tightly swaddled child, as was customary in peasant families, shows the main way of connecting with the world - through a glance. In these traditions, Erickson finds a deep connection with how society wants its member to be. So, in one Indian tribe, Erickson notes, the mother, whenever the child bites her chest, hits him painfully on the head, bringing him to furious crying. The Indians believe that such techniques contribute to the upbringing of a good hunter from a child. These examples vividly illustrate Erickson's idea that human existence depends on three processes of organization that should complement each other:

• 1) the biological process of the hierarchical organization of organic systems that make up the body (soma);
• 2) a mental process that organizes individual experience through egosynthesis (psyche);
• 3) social process cultural organization of interconnected people (ethos).

Erickson especially emphasizes that all three of these approaches are necessary for a holistic understanding of any event in human life.

In many cultures, it is customary for a baby to be weaned at a specific time. IN classical psychoanalysis As you know, this event is regarded as one of the deepest childhood traumas, the consequences of which remain for life. Erickson, however, is not so dramatic about this event. In his opinion, the maintenance of basic trust is possible with another form of feeding. If a child is picked up, rocked to sleep, smiled at him, talked to him, then all the social achievements of this stage are formed in him. At the same time, parents should not lead the child only through coercion and prohibitions, they should be able to convey to the child "a deep and almost organic conviction that there is some meaning in what they are doing with him now." However, even in the most favorable cases, prohibitions and restrictions that cause frustration are inevitable. They leave the child feeling rejected and create the basis for a basic mistrust of the world.

Second stage personality development, but Erickson - musculo-anal, which consists in the formation and upholding by the child of his autonomy and independence. It starts from the moment the child begins to walk. At this stage, the pleasure zone is associated with the anus. The anal zone creates two opposite modes: the mode of retention and the mode of relaxation. Society, attaching special importance to accustoming a child to neatness, creates conditions for the dominance of these modes, their separation from their organ and transformation into such modalities of behavior as preservation and destruction. The struggle for "sphincter control" as a result of the importance attached to it by society is transformed into a struggle for mastery of one's motor capabilities, for the assertion of one's new, autonomous "I".

A growing sense of self-reliance should not undermine the basic trust in the world that has developed. Parental control allows you to keep this feeling through the restriction of the growing desires of the child to demand, appropriate, destroy, when he, as it were, tests the strength of his new capabilities. “Outward firmness should protect the child from potential anarchy from the yet untrained sense of discrimination, his inability to gently hold on and let go,” wrote Erickson. These limitations, in turn, create the basis for negative feelings of shame and doubt.

The emergence of a sense of shame, according to Erickson, is associated with the emergence of self-awareness, because shame means that the subject is fully exposed to the public and understands his position. "He who experiences shame would like to make the whole world not look at him, not notice his" nudity, "- Erickson wrote. - He would like to blind the whole world. Or, on the contrary, he himself wants to become invisible." Punishment and shaming for bad deeds lead the child to feel that "the eyes of the world are looking at him." "A child would like to force the whole world not to look at him," but that is impossible. Therefore, social disapproval of his actions forms the "inner eyes of the world" in the child - shame for his mistakes. In the words of Erickson, "doubt is the brother of shame." Doubt is associated with the realization that one's own body has a front and back side - the back. The back is not visible to the child himself and is completely subject to the will of other people who can limit his desire for autonomy. They call "bad" those functions of the intestines that give pleasure and relief to the child himself. Hence, everything that a person leaves behind in the next life will create grounds for doubts and irrational fears.

The struggle of a sense of independence against shame and doubt leads to the establishment of a relationship between the ability to cooperate with other people and insist on one's own, between freedom of expression and its restriction. At the end of the stage, a mobile balance develops between these opposites. It will become positive if parents and close adults do not, by controlling the child, overly suppress his desire for autonomy. “From a sense of self-control while maintaining a positive self-esteem comes a stable sense of goodwill and pride; from a feeling of loss of self-control and alien external control, a stable tendency to doubt and shame is born,” emphasized Erickson.

The modes of intrusion and inclusion create new modalities of pas behavior. third stages of personality development - infantile-genital. "Intrusion into space through energetic movements, into other bodies through physical attack, into the ears and souls of other people through aggressive sounds, into the unknown through consuming curiosity" - such, according to Erickson's description, is a preschooler at one pole of his behavioral reactions, while at Otherwise, he is receptive to the environment, ready to establish tender and caring relationships with peers and young children. Freud called this stage the phallic or oedipal stage. According to Erickson, the child's interest in his genitals, awareness of his gender and the desire to take the place of the father (mother) in relations with parents of the opposite sex is only a particular moment in the development of the child during this period. The child eagerly and actively learns the world around him; in the game, creating imaginary, modeling situations, he, together with his peers, masters the "economic ethos of culture", i.e. system of relations between people in the process of production. As a result, the child develops a desire to get involved in real joint activities with adults, to get out of the role of a little one. But adults remain omnipotent and incomprehensible for the child, they can shame and punish. In this tangle of contradictions, the qualities of active enterprise and initiative should be formed.

The sense of initiative, according to Erickson, is universal. "The self-word "initiative," wrote Erickson, "has an American and entrepreneurial connotation for many. Nevertheless, initiative is a necessary aspect of any action, and initiative is necessary for people in everything they do and learn, from collecting fruits to system free enterprise".

Aggressive behavior of the child inevitably entails the restriction of initiative and the emergence of feelings of guilt and anxiety. So, according to Eriksop, new internal instances of behavior are laid - conscience and moral responsibility for your thoughts and actions. It is at this stage of development, like no other, that the child is ready to learn quickly and eagerly. "He can and wants to act together, to unite with other children for the purposes of design and planning, and he also seeks to benefit from communication with his teacher and is ready to surpass any ideal prototype," Erickson noted.

fourth stage personality development, which psychoanalysis calls the latent period, and Erickson - time psychosexual moratorium, characterizes a certain drowsiness of infantile sexuality and a delay in genital maturity, necessary for the future adult to learn the technical and social foundations of labor activity. The school systematically introduces the child to knowledge about future work activity, transmits in a specially organized form the "technological" ethos "of culture, forms industriousness. At this stage, the child learns to love learning and learns most selflessly those types of technology that correspond to this society.

The danger that awaits the child at this stage lies in feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. According to Erickson, "the child in this case experiences despair from his ineptitude in the world of tools and sees himself doomed to mediocrity or inadequacy." If, in favorable cases, the figures of the father and mother, their significance for the child fade into the background, then when a feeling of inadequacy arises for the requirements of the school, the family again becomes a refuge for the child.

Erickson emphasizes that the developing child at each stage must come to a vital sense of self-worth and should not be satisfied with irresponsible praise or condescending approval. His ego-identity reaches real strength only when he understands that his achievements are manifested in those areas of life that are significant for a given culture.

According to Erickson, a number of dangers lie in wait for a child at this stage of development. Among them:

• o inability and impossibility to learn;
• o during for long years going to school, the child does not feel proud that at least one thing he did with his own hands quite well;
• o raising good "little performers" who do not strive to achieve something more; such children have an exaggerated sense of responsibility, the need to do what you were told. Such a child becomes dependent on prescribed duties. According to Erickson, in the future he may never unlearn this self-restraint, which came at a high price, but is not necessary. Because of this, such a person will be able to make his life and the life of other people miserable and break their natural desire to study and work in their children, the scientist emphasized;
• o learn something by playing when children do only what they want; only what they like;
• o most of our teachers primary school-women, which is often the cause of conflict in the formation of personality identification in boys. One gets the impression, Erickson wrote, that knowledge is something purely feminine, and action is purely masculine. In confirmation of this, Erickson cites the words of B. Shaw: "Those who can, do, while those who cannot, teach." Therefore, the selection and training of teachers is vital in order to avoid the dangers that await a person at this stage of development.

Another valuable observation of Erickson belongs to this period of human life. He writes about him this way: "Again and again, in conversations with especially gifted and spiritualized people, one comes across with what warmth they speak of one of their teachers who managed to reveal their talent." Unfortunately, he notes, not everyone manages to meet such a person.

fifth stage in personality development - youth - characterizes the deepest life crisis. Childhood is coming to an end. The completion of this large stage of the life path is characterized by the formation of the first integral form ego identity. Three lines of development lead to this crisis: rapid physical growth and puberty ("physiological revolution"); preoccupation with "how I look in the eyes of others", "what I am"; the need to find one's professional vocation that meets the acquired skills, individual abilities and the requirements of society. In the adolescent identity crisis, all past critical moments of development reappear. The teenager must now solve all the old problems consciously and with an inner conviction that it is this choice that is significant for him and for society. Then social trust in the world, independence, initiative, mastered skills will create a new integrity of the individual.

Adolescence is the most important period of development, which accounts for the main identity crisis. It is followed by either the acquisition of an "adult identity" or a developmental delay, i.e. "diffusion of identity".

The interval between adolescence and adulthood, when a young person seeks (by zero trial and error) to find his place in society, Erickson called psychosocial moratorium.

The severity of the identity crisis depends both on the degree of resolution of earlier crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.), and on the spiritual atmosphere of society.

To acquire an identity, society provides a person with additional time. IN modern society This is student age. An unsurmounted crisis leads to a state of acute diffusion of identity, which forms the basis of the social pathology of adolescence.

Social Identity Pathology Syndrome according to Erickson:

• o regression to the infantile level and the desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible;
• o a vague but persistent state of anxiety;
• o feelings of isolation and emptiness;
• o constantly being in a state of something that can change lives;
• o fear of personal communication and inability to emotionally influence the faces of another iol;
• o hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles, including male and female ("unisex");
• o contempt for everything American and an irrational preference for everything foreign (on the principle of "it's good where we are not");

So, in extreme cases, there is a search for a negative identity, the desire to "become nothing" as the only way of self-affirmation.

Following V. James, E. Erickson distinguishes between "once-born" young people, i.e. violent, carefree, self-confident, easily adapting to the ideology of their era, and people striving for a second birth, deeply experiencing a crisis of growth. It was about them that Erickson wrote: "These people are able to make an original contribution to the emerging lifestyle: the very danger they feel makes them mobilize their abilities to see and speak, dream and calculate, design and create in a new way." Erik Homburger Erikson himself was such a person.

Let us note a few more important statements by Erickson relating to the period of youth. So, falling in love at this age, according to Erickson, is not originally sexual in nature. "To a large extent, youthful love is an attempt to come to the definition of one's own identity by projecting one's own initially indistinct image onto someone else and contemplating it already in a reflected and clarified form," Erickson believed. "That's why the manifestation of youthful love in many ways comes down to talking," he wrote. Behind the experience of falling in love are hidden even deeper personality neoplasms, which can be described in the words of Erickson: "Only if the identity is confirmed by others, is it real for the individual himself", or: "We recognize ourselves by the reflection in the mirror, which others are people".

According to the logic of personality development, young people are characterized by selectivity in communication and cruelty towards "strangers" who differ in social origin, tastes or abilities. “Often, special costume details or special gestures are temporarily chosen as signs to help distinguish “us” from “stranger” ... such intolerance is a protection for a sense of one's own identity from depersonalization and confusion, ”he wrote.

The formation of ego-identity allows a young person to move to sixth stage development, the content of which is the search for a life partner, the desire for close cooperation with others, the desire for close friendships with members of one's social group. The young man is not afraid now of losing his "I" and depersonalization. The achievements of the previous stage enable him, as Erickson wrote, "with a willingness and desire to mix his identity with others." The basis of the desire for rapprochement with others is the complete mastery of the main modalities of behavior. It is no longer the mode of some organ that dictates the content of development, but all the considered modes are subordinate to the new, integral formation of ego-identity that appeared at the previous stage. The young man is ready for intimacy, he is able to give himself to cooperation with others in specific social groups and has enough ethical strength to firmly adhere to such group affiliation, even if this requires significant sacrifice and compromise.

The danger at this stage is loneliness, avoidance of contacts that require complete intimacy. Such a violation, according to Erickson, can lead to acute "character problems", to psychopathology. If the psychic moratorium continues at this stage, then instead of a feeling of closeness, there arises a desire to keep a distance, not to let one into one's "territory", into one's inner world. There is a danger that these aspirations may turn into personal qualities- Feelings of isolation and loneliness. overcome these negative sides identity helps love. Erickson believed that it was in relation to a young man, and not to a young man, and even more so to a teenager, that one could speak of "true genitality." Erickson reminds that love should not be understood only as sexual attraction, referring to the Freudian distinction "genital any" and "genital love". He pointed out that the emergence of a mature feeling of love and the establishment of a creative atmosphere of cooperation in labor activity prepare the transition to the next stage of development.

seventh stage considered as central to the adult stage of a person's life path. According to Erickson, personality development continues throughout life. Recall that for Freud, a person remains only an unchanging product of his childhood, constantly experiencing restrictions from society. Personal development continues through the influence of children, which confirms the subjective feeling of being needed by others. Productive labor and generation (procreation) as the main positive characteristics personalities at this stage are realized in caring for the upbringing of a new generation, in productive labor activity and creativity. In everything that a person does, he puts a particle of his "I", and this leads to personal enrichment. "A mature person," wrote Erickson, "needs to be needed, and maturity needs guidance and encouragement from its offspring, which must be taken care of." And it doesn't have to be about your own children.

On the contrary, in the event that an unfavorable developmental situation develops, an excessive focus on oneself appears, which leads to inertia and stagnation, personal devastation. Such people often see themselves as their own and only child. If conditions favor such a trend, then physical and psychological disability of the individual occurs. It was prepared by all previous stages, if the balance of forces in their course was in favor of an unsuccessful choice. The desire to care for others, creativity, the desire to create things in which a particle of unique individuality is invested helps to overcome the possible formation of self-absorption and personal impoverishment.

eighth stage life path is characterized by the achievement of a new completed form of ego-identity. Only in a person who has somehow shown concern for people and things and adapted to the successes and disappointments inherent in life, in the parent of children and the creator of things and ideas - only in him does the fruit of all seven stages gradually ripen - the integrity of the personality. E. Erickson notes several components of such a state of mind:

• o ever-increasing personal confidence in their commitment to order and meaningfulness;
• o post-narcissistic love of the human personality as an experience of the world order and the spiritual meaning of the life lived, regardless of the price they are achieved;
• o accepting one's life path as the only one that should be and does not need to be replaced:
• o new, different from the former love for their parents;
• o sympathy for the principles of past times and various activities in the form in which they manifested themselves in human culture.

The owner of such a personality understands that the life of an individual person is only an accidental coincidence of a single life cycle with a single segment of history, and in the face of this fact, death loses its power. The wise Indian, the true gentleman, and the conscientious peasant fully share this final state of personal integrity and recognize it from each other, Erickson emphasized.

Wisdom emerges at this stage of development, which Erickson defines as a detached interest in life as such in the face of death. On the contrary, the absence of this personal integration leads to the fear of death. There is despair, because there is too little time left to start life anew and in a new way, to try to achieve personal integrity in a different way. This state can be conveyed in the words of the Russian poet B.C. Vysotsky: "Your blood was frozen with eternal cold and ice from the fear of living and from the premonition of death."

As a result of the struggle of positive and negative tendencies in solving the main problems during epigenesis, the main "virtues" of the personality are formed. But since positive feelings always exist and oppose negative ones, “virtues” also have two poles. So:

• o basic belief vs. basic distrust breeds hope / distance;
• o autonomy versus shame and doubt - will / impulsiveness",
• o initiative versus guilt - purposefulness / apathy;
• o industriousness against feelings of inferiority - competence/inertia;
• o identity vs identity diffusion - fidelity / renunciation;
• o intimacy versus loneliness - love/isolation;
• o procreation versus self-absorption - care/rejection;
• o ego integration versus loss of interest in life - wisdom / contempt.

E. Erikson is a follower of Z. Freud. In the "Dictionary of Famous Americans", published on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the United States, he was called "the most creatively bright of all who have worked in the psychoanalytic tradition since Freud." As emphasized by D.N. Lyalikov, the first observer of the teachings of E. Erickson in our country, most valuable in Erickson is the main core of his teaching: the development of the concepts of personal and group identity, mental moratorium, and the doctrine of youthful identity crisis.

Erikson himself believed that he expanded the Freudian concept, went beyond it. First, he shifted the emphasis from "It" to "I". According to Erickson, his book "Childhood and Society" is a psychoanalytic work on the relation of the "I" to society. He accepted the idea of ​​unconscious motivation, but devoted his research mainly to the processes of socialization. Secondly, Erickson introduced a new system in which the child develops. For Freud, this is a triangle: child - mother - father. Erickson considered development in a wider system of social relations: "Child - society", emphasizing the historical reality in which the "I" develops. He dealt with the dynamics of relations between family members and sociocultural reality. Thirdly, Erikson's theory meets the requirements of the time and the society to which he himself belonged.

Erickson's goal is to reveal genetic possibilities for overcoming psychological life crises. If Freud devoted his work to the etiology of pathological development, then Erickson focused on the study of the conditions for the successful resolution of psychological crises, giving a new direction to psychoanalytic theory.

In 1966, in a paper given at the Royal Society of London, Erickson applied some ethological propositions to his scheme of individual development. Ethologists have shown that the most highly organized animals develop in relation to each other a system of ritualized actions that actually serve as a means of survival for individual individuals. It should be noted that among primitive peoples there is a practice of annual ritual wars, which serve to prevent a real war. At all levels of human relationships, in essence, there are ritualized actions. In the ability to ritualize their relationships and develop new rituals, Erickson saw the opportunity to create a new lifestyle that could lead to overcoming aggressiveness and ambivalence in human relations.

In "The Ontogeny of Ritualization," Erickson wrote that "ritual" has three different meanings. One of the oldest is used in ethnography and refers to rites and rituals performed by adults in order to mark recurring events: the change of seasons or periods of life. Young people take part in these rituals, and children can observe them.

In psychiatry, the term "ritual" is used to refer to compulsive behavior, compulsive repetitive actions, similar to the actions of animals locked in a cage.

In ethology, the term "ritual" is used to describe certain phylogenesis-formed ceremonial actions in the so-called social animals. An example is the greeting ceremony, which was described by K. Lorenz. When a newborn gosling gets out of the nest and lies with its neck stretched out in a heap in a pile of wet shell fragments, a vital reaction can be observed in it: if you lean towards it and make a sound reminiscent of the sounds of a goose, then the gosling will raise its head, stretch its neck and emit a thin, but clearly audible sound. Thus, before the gosling can walk or eat, it can perform this early form of encounter ritual. The life and growth of the gosling depends on the success of this very first response to the presence of the mother (and she, in turn, achieves it). So, already at the phylogenetic level, in the repetitive forms of behavior, which ethologists and after them Erickson call ritualization, there is a relationship, the content of which is the exchange of messages.

Erickson outlined the criteria for authentic ritualized actions:

• o meaning for all participants in the interaction while maintaining differences between individuals;
• o the ability to develop according to the stages of the life cycle, during which the achievements of the previous stages in the future, at later stages, acquire a symbolic meaning;
• o the ability to maintain a certain novelty with multiple repetitions, the playful nature of the ritual.

ritualization in human behavior, it is an agreement-based interaction of at least two people who renew it at regular intervals in repetitive circumstances; it has importance for the "I" of all participants.

Following the law of bipolarity, Erickson opposes ritualisms to rituals. ritualisms - these are ritual-looking behaviors characterized by rote repetition and soulless automatism.

The stages of development of ritualizations, according to E. Erickson, are presented in Table. 2.

Table 2.

properties of rituals. The ritualization is most pronounced in the way mother and child greet each other in the morning. Erickson describes the process as follows. The awakened child informs his mother about this and immediately awakens in her an extensive repertoire of emotional, verbal and motor behavior. She addresses the baby with a smile or anxious attention, pronounces the name cheerfully or preoccupiedly, and proceeds to action: examines, feels, sniffs; identifies possible sources of discomfort and takes the necessary actions to eliminate them, changes the position of the child, soothes him, prepares for feeding, etc.

If this process is observed for several days in a row (and especially in a new, unfamiliar ethnographic environment), then it is clear that the behavior of the mother is strongly formalized (she tries to evoke a previously known answer in the child). At the same time, this behavior individualized ("typical of this mother" and tuned to "this child"). However, this behavior stereotyped it is carried out according to certain patterns, which can be easily found in cultures, countries or families other than one's own.

It should be noted that this whole process is periodicity physiological needs of life and is a practical necessity for both the mother and the child.

The name of the child is important. The mother may call the child by its full name or by its abbreviation. The name is usually carefully chosen and enshrined in the rite of naming. But whatever meaning is attached to the name, its utterance during the greeting is connected with other expressions of caring attention and has a special meaning for the mother and, ultimately, for the child. Erickson evaluates it "as a small but strong link in a huge succession of generations." So, according to psychoanalysis, "a person lives, as it were, in past generations and at the same time in his own."

Reciprocity. According to Erickson, a person is born with the need for mutual recognition and identification in him. Failure to satisfy this need can cause irreparable harm to the child, extinguishing his craving for impressions necessary for the development of the senses. But, once it has arisen, "this need will manifest itself again and again at every stage of life in the form of a hunger for a new and wider experience, repeating this "recognition" of a face and a voice that brings hope."

The ritual of mutual recognition, which, formed in infancy, manifests itself in an expanded form in the relationship between mother and child, subsequently permeates all relationships between people. It manifests itself, for example, in daily greetings and other forms of mutual recognition - in love, inspiration, mass submission to the leader's charisma. The first vague recognition is one of the basic elements in all rituals. Erickson calls it the numinous element, or the element of reverence (numinous - awe-inspiring).

In relation to the infant, ritualisms are manifested in the absence of eye contact and facial expressions, in endless repetitions of stereotypical body movements. Extreme forms of these behaviors can cause symptoms of autism, which Erickson believes is linked to flawed mothering. In this way of development, idolatry becomes an element of adult ritual, which is defined by Erickson as " visual form drug addiction" that could become "the most dangerous system of collective hallucination".

Erickson noted similarities between the ritualization associated with babysitting and religious rituals. In both cases, in his opinion, the feeling of disunity and alienation is overcome. In religious ritual, the element of reverence predominates; in other forms of adult ritual, it plays an auxiliary role and is connected with other elements of a mature ritual into a single whole.

According to Erickson, the main strength of human life is hope, the understanding that you are not alone and can get help in difficult times arises from intimacy and reciprocity in infancy. In the future, hope is reinforced by all those rituals that help overcome feelings of abandonment and hopelessness and ensure mutual recognition throughout life.

The distinction between good and evil. At a new stage of development, it is necessary to confirm reciprocity new form ritualization. This form of ritualization, in turn, must add an essential element to adult ritual. Erickson calls the second type of ritualization in human relations critical. This ritual helps the child to distinguish between good and evil. At an early age, the independence of the child increases, which, however, has certain limits. The child develops the ability to distinguish between what "looks good" and deserves approval or does not look so in the eyes of other people and is condemned. The development of speech also helps to distinguish between what can be talked about, what matters and what remains nameless, as if "bad". All this takes place during the period of the child's accustoming to neatness and, according to Erickson, is colored by anal instinctiveness with its emphasis on "restraint" and "relaxation". At the same time, a new sense of alienation arises: upon standing up, the child discovers that he may suffer from shame as a result of involuntary defecation. The child is embarrassed, he feels that he can be rejected if he does not overcome his immediate desire for pleasure. Adults try to use and deepen this trend. According to Erickson, in the ritualization of approval or disapproval of the child's behavior, adults act as "heralds of supra-individual rightness", condemning the deed, but not necessarily the one who did it.

The element of "reasonableness" (critical ritual) differs from the ritual of "reciprocity" (reverence) in that here, as Erickson wrote, the child's free will appears for the first time. In the ritualizations of the infancy, it was the task and responsibility of the mother to prevent the wrong actions of the child. At an early age, the child himself is taught to "take care of himself." To this end, parents (father and other people who appear as judges) compare the child with such a negative character as he could become if he himself (and adults) did not take care of himself. Here lies the ontogenetic root "negative identity". It embodies what should not be and what should not be shown, and at the same time emphasizes what each person potentially has. On specific examples of "strangers" (neighbors, enemies, witches, ghosts), which one should not be like in order to be accepted by one's circle, those potential traits are shown that the child must learn to mentally imagine in order not to repeat them. Often as negative example adults use people of other nationalities. This is a terrible thing, Erickson believed, because here the child has irrational prejudices against other people.

Ritualization of relations between a child and an adult at this age helps reduce ambivalence, helps the child "learn to be proper", follow certain rules, give in to demands that he can understand in situations that he can control.

A critical element of adult ritual corresponds to judicial procedure. "The law is as vigilant as our conscience," Erickson wrote. Excessive formalization in the ritual, as Erickson believed, can lead to "an obsession with the formal side" of ritualizations. The emasculation of the moral meaning of the ritual, blind adherence to the letter of the law does not remain without a trace in the development of the individual. According to Erickson, young offenders are the result of meaningless emasculated ritualizations. Ritualism at this stage Erickson calls legalism.

In the process of personality development, the ritual element, once having arisen, is successively included in the system that arises at higher levels, becoming an essential part of the subsequent stages. A mature ritual is a complete set of elements added at all stages of development.

Dramatic developments. The next element of the ritual is dramatic. It is formed during the game period. At this age, the child is preparing for the role of the future creator of rituals. In play, the child is able to avoid adult ritualization, he can correct and recreate past experience and anticipate future events. When the child assumes the roles of adults, then the feeling of guilt appears and finds its resolution. This is the main feeling that arises in the child due to the formation of the "Super-I" instance. Guilt is a feeling of self-condemnation for any act invented in fantasy or actually committed, but not known to others or committed and condemned by others. True ritualization, but according to Erickson, is impossible in single games, only the game of the general does not allow dramatic developments.

Ritualism at this stage becomes the moralistic and prohibitive suppression of free initiative and the absence of creatively ritualized ways to get rid of guilt. Erickson calls this moralism.

social institution corresponding to the dramatic element of the ritual - theater. Erikson believed that children's games and theatrical performances have common themes, and this prompted Freud to name the main complex of the play period after the hero of the tragedy - Oedipus. Common themes are the conflict between arrogance and guilt, between father's murder and self-sacrifice, between freedom and sin. The theater, according to Erickson, is the seat of dramatic ritual, but it cannot be carried out without reciprocity and criticism, just as the mature form of ritual cannot do without elements of drama.

Formal rules add new element to ritualization. Erickson called it the element of performance excellence. School relationships are usually strictly formalized, they are characterized by strict discipline, in which all other elements of ritual actions are built. The social institution of the fourth stage is the school. At school, Erickson believed, the child must forget his past hopes and desires; his unbridled imagination must be tamed and polluted by the laws of impersonal things. Formalization school relations is of great importance for the external side of the ritualized behavior of adults. The external form of rituals affects the senses, maintains the active tension of the "I", since this is a conscious order in which a person takes part.

Erickson again warns about the possibility of emasculating the content of the ritual, about the danger of excessive ritualization, when a child is required to have school order and discipline, but they do not provide awareness of these requirements, an understanding of the need for discipline and active participation the child himself in these ritualizations. Then the formal element of the ritual is reborn into formalism.

Solidarity of beliefs. The last, indispensable element that enters the mature, adult form of the ritual is formed in adolescence and adolescence, when a sense of ego-identity arises. This is the organizing element of all previous ritualizations, since, according to Erickson, it sets a certain ideological understanding of the sequence of development of rituals. At this stage, the improvisational side of ritualizations is especially pronounced.

Adolescents spontaneously ritualize relationships between themselves and in this way further separate their generation from adults and children. Young people in search of their "I", their place in the world, Erickson wrote, carry out a spontaneous search for new ritualizations, new meanings of human existence and are often not satisfied with the existing ideological answer to these questions. This is how the problem of "fathers and sons", the gap between generations, the desire of young people to reassess values, to deny the established foundations, traditions and conventions is exacerbated.

Society, for its part, through initiation, confirmation, initiation and other rituals, recognizes that the teenager has become an adult, that he can devote himself to ritual goals, in other words, become the creator of new rituals and maintain traditions in the lives of his children.

According to Erickson, to become an adult, i.e. fully grow into human sense, means not only mastering modern technology and consciously joining your social group, but also being able to reject an alien worldview and an alien ideology. Only the combination of these processes allows young people to concentrate their energy for the preservation and renewal of society.

In the case of identity diffusion, when a young person cannot find his place in life, spontaneous ritualizations intensify, which look defiant from the outside and are accompanied by ridicule from strangers. However, Erickson emphasizes, in fact, such ritualizations are deeply sincere attempts by young people to oppose the impersonal ™ mass production, the vagueness of the preached goals, the unattainability of prospects for both individual and truly social existence.

Rapid changes in technology point to the need to find a new meaning for ritual activities. In a modern highly developed society, attempts are being made to involve youth in mass rituals that combine reverence, justice and drama, organized with a detailed study of the formal aspect. Such, for example, are festivals, sports days, hit parades, theatrical performances that reinforce in the masses of young people the ideological principles and worldview characteristic of a given society. At this age, an ideological element is added to the elements of reverence, justice, dramatic and formal elements of ontogenetic development. The opposite pole at this stage is totalitarianism.

According to Erickson, at certain periods of his history and at certain phases of his life cycle, man needs a new ideological orientation as much as he needs air and food. And further: “Without any embarrassment, with any analyzed material, I would show sympathy and empathy for a young man (by no means always deserving of love), who relates to the problems of human existence from the point of view of the latest ideas his time."

At the subsequent stages, according to Erickson, the ritualization of relations is built according to the following scheme: establishing a connection - elitism, generation - authoritarianism, philosophy - dogmatism.

Erickson's concept is called epigenetic concept of the life path of the individual. As is known, the epigenetic principle is used in the study of embryonic development. According to this principle, everything that grows has a common plan. Proceeding from this general plan, separate parts develop, and each of them has the most favorable period for preferential development. This happens until all the parts, having developed, form a functional whole. Epigenetic concepts in biology emphasize the role external factors in the emergence of new forms and structures, thus they oppose preformist teachings. From Erickson's point of view, the sequence of stages is the result of biological maturation, but the content of development is determined by what the society to which he belongs expects from a person. According to Erickson, any person can go through all these stages, no matter what culture he belongs to, it all depends on how long his life is.

Evaluating the work carried out, Erickson admitted that his periodization cannot be considered as a theory of personality. In his opinion, this is only the key to building such a theory.

The diagonal of Erickson's scheme (see Table 1) indicates the sequence of stages of personality development, but, in his own words, it leaves room for variation in pace and intensity. "The epigenetic diagram enumerates a system of stages dependent on each other, and although the individual stages may be studied more or less carefully, or named more or less appropriately, our diagram suggests to the researcher that their study will achieve the intended goal only when he has in view of the whole system of stages as a whole ... The diagram prompts the comprehension of all these empty squares. Thus, but in Erickson's words, "the epigenesis schema suggests a global form of thought and reflection that leaves the details of methodology and phraseology open to further study."

Erikson's concept can be completed with the words of his favorite philosopher S. Kierkegaard: "Life can be understood in reverse order, but it must be lived from the beginning."

Erik Erikson's epigenetic theory of personality

E. Erickson(1902-1979) - a follower of Z. Freud, but he expands the approach of his teacher by considering development in a wider system of social relations.

E. Erickson's theory arose from the practice of psychoanalysis. Accepting the structure of personality 3. Freud, he created psychoanalytic concept of the relationship between "I" and society. Drawing attention to the role of "I" in the development of personality, E. Erickson shifted the emphasis from "It" to "I". In his opinion, the foundations of the human "I" are rooted in the social organization of society. Applying psychoanalysis in post-war America, he saw various phenomena - anxiety, apathy, cruelty, confusion - as the result of the impact of a difficult period of war on an individual.

E. Erickson accepts the idea of ​​unconscious motivation adopted in psychoanalysis, but devotes his research mainly to socialization processes.

The works of E. Erickson mark the beginning of a new path in the study of the psyche - psychohistorical method , which is the application of psychoanalysis to history. This method requires equal attention both to the psychology of the individual and to the nature of the society in which the person lives. E. Erickson analyzed the biographies of Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Bernard Shaw and others. E. Erickson conducted field ethnographic research into the upbringing of children in two Indian tribes and came to the conclusion that the style of motherhood is always determined by what exactly that social society expects from a child in the future. the group to which he belongs.

Erickson discovered different cultures have different "trust schemes" and traditions of care for the child. This interest began with the observation of child rearing in Indian tribes, which Erickson observed on reservations:

In some cultures, the mother shows tenderness very emotionally, she always feeds the baby when he cries or is naughty, does not swaddle him. In other cultures, on the contrary, it is customary to swaddle tightly, let the child scream and cry, "so that his lungs are stronger." The last way of leaving, according to Erickson, is characteristic of Russian culture. This explains, according to Erickson, the special expressiveness of the eyes of Russian people. A tightly swaddled child, as was customary in peasant families, shows the main way of connecting with the world - through a glance. In these traditions, Erickson finds a deep connection with how society wants its member to be. So, in one Indian tribe, Erickson notes, the mother, whenever the child bites her chest, hits him painfully on the head, bringing him to furious crying. The Indians believe that such techniques contribute to the upbringing of a good hunter from a child.

If an individual meets the expectations of society, he is included in it, and vice versa. These considerations formed the basis of two important concepts of his concept - "group identity" and "ego-identity".

Group identity It is formed due to the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on including him in a given social group, on developing a worldview inherent in this group. Ego-identity (personal identity) is formed in parallel with group identity and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his "I", despite the changes that occur with a person in the process of his growth and development. Until the age of 17-20, the formation of this main nuclear formation of the personality takes place. Personality develops through inclusion in various social communities and experiencing its inextricable connection with them. Identity - this is a psychosocial identity - allows a person to accept himself in all the richness of his relations with the outside world, and determines his system of values, ideals, life plans, needs, social roles. If the identity does not add up, a person does not find himself, his place in life.

E. Erickson singled out the stages of a person's life path, each of them is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society. The solution to this problem depends on the already achieved level of psychomotor development of the individual and on the general spiritual atmosphere of society.

1. trust - distrust of the world around (0 - 1 year);

2. a sense of independence - a sense of shame and doubt (1 - 3 years);

3. initiative - a sense of guilt (4 - 5 years);

4. industriousness - a feeling of inferiority (6 - 11 years);

5. understanding of belonging to a certain gender - a lack of understanding of the forms of behavior corresponding to this gender (12 - 18 years old);

6. yearning for intimate relationships- isolation from others (early maturation);

7. vital activity - focus on oneself, age-related problems (normal growing up);

8. feeling of fullness of life - despair (late maturation).

The formation of all forms of identity is accompanied by a development crisis. Crises are turning points, a choice between progress or regression. Adolescence, according to E. Erickson, is the most important period of development, which accounts for the main identity crisis. It is followed by either the acquisition of an "adult identity" or developmental delay, i.e., the diffusion of identity.

The interval between youth and adulthood, when a young person seeks (through trial and error) to find his place in society, E. Erickson called "psychic moratorium". The severity of this crisis depends both on the degree of resolution of earlier crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.), and on the entire spiritual atmosphere of society. An unsurmounted crisis leads to a state of acute diffusion of identity, which forms the basis of a special pathology of adolescence. E. Erickson introduced into psychology concept of ritualization. ritualization in human behavior, it is an interaction based on an agreement of at least two people who resume it at certain intervals in repeating circumstances (ritual of mutual recognition, critical, dramatic and other rituals); it is essential to the "I" of all participants. In the process of personality development, the ritual element, having once arisen, is successively included in the system that arises at higher levels, becoming an essential part of the subsequent stages. In the case of identity diffusion, when a young person cannot find his place in life, spontaneous ritualizations intensify, which look defiant from the outside and are accompanied by ridicule from strangers.

E. Erickson's concept is called epigenetic concept of the life path of the individual. According to the epigenetic principle used in the study of embryonic development, the weight that grows has a general plan. Based on this general plan, separate parts develop. Moreover, each of them has the most favorable period for predominant development. This happens until all the parts, having developed, form a functional whole.

Epigenetic concepts are opposed to preformist teachings, as they emphasize the role of external factors in the emergence of new forms and structures. E. Erickson's point of view, the sequence of stages is the result of biological maturation, but the content of development is determined by what society expects from a person.

E. Erickson himself admitted that his periodization cannot be considered as a theory of personality, it is only the key to building such a theory.