The Eight Stages of Personality Development: What We Go Through

1. From birth to 1 year

It is during this very early period that our basic trust or distrust in the world is formed. If in the first year of life, mother and the closest environment give us enough care, attention and love, then we begin to trust the world and other people.

Otherwise, timidity and suspicion appear, becoming our companions at the next stages of development. As adults, we trust or distrust society in the same way that we once trusted or distrusted our mother, endured her disappearance from view, knowing that she would reappear and take care of us.

However, the issue of trust-distrust is not resolved exclusively in the first year of a child’s life: it arises at all subsequent stages. For example, in a situation of parental divorce, when the child becomes a witness to mutual accusations and scandals, the trust acquired in infancy can be destroyed.

2. From one year to 3 years

The motor and mental needs of the child develop, and this makes him more independent. During this period, we learned to walk, mastered the subject environment, tried to do everything ourselves. And if our parents gave us such an opportunity, gradually providing more and more freedom, then we were strengthened by the confidence that we own our muscles, motives, ourselves and the environment, we became independent.

However, many adults sometimes lack patience: they rush to do for the child what he could do for himself. As a result, the baby develops modesty and indecision, which negatively affects his future life. However, this is not a sentence: at subsequent stages of development, the relationship between independence and shyness and insecurity may change.

3. 3 to 6 years old

At this age, we already knew how to do a lot on our own, showed activity and enterprise, began to communicate with a large circle of people. If parents encouraged our activity, answered our endless “why”, did not prevent us from fantasizing and building imaginary worlds around ourselves in the game, they thereby strengthened our entrepreneurial spirit.

But if we were constantly reprimanded, our questions stopped, noisy games and fiction were forbidden, we could begin to feel guilt, loneliness and our own worthlessness.

In the future, such children cannot stand up for themselves, they become led and dependent on others. In addition, they will lack determination and purpose.

According to Erickson, persistent guilt can subsequently lead to the development of pathologies, including general passivity, sexual dysfunction, and psychopathic behavior.

4. 6 to 12 years old

At this age, we began to study systematically, tried to design, build, needlework, often fantasized about different professions.

Public approval is fundamentally important at this stage. If we were praised for activity and creativity, it helped us to become hardworking, to develop our abilities. If adults (both parents and teachers) did not do this, this could provoke the development of inferiority. The ego-identity of the child during this period is expressed as follows: “I am what I have learned.”

5. 12 to 19 years old

Stage of metamorphosis: physiology changes, there is a desire to look at the world in one’s own way, a need for one’s life philosophy. A teenager asks questions “Who am I?” and “What do I want to be?”.

Remember: at this age we tried to create a single and, if possible, consistent image of ourselves. If we were able to do this, then the crisis was successfully resolved. Otherwise, there was disorientation in oneself, restlessness, a sense of confusion of roles.

Erickson considered this period of a person’s life to be central in the formation of his psychological and social well-being.

6. 20 to 25 years old

This age, as Erik Erikson says, is a symbolic “gateway” to adulthood. We get a profession, we meet people, sometimes we get married.

The positive pole of this stage is closeness (intimacy) in the broadest sense of the word: the ability to take care of another person, respect and love him, without fear of losing yourself.

At the negative pole, loneliness (isolation) awaits: we have no one to share our lives with, no one to take care of.

Success or failure at this stage depends on how successfully we passed the previous stages.

7. 26 to 64 years old

In such a broad framework, Erickson concluded a mature age, dividing into poles, to which we all gravitate in one way or another, universal humanity (productivity) and self-absorption (inertia).

In the first case, we experience a sense of belonging to humanity. We choose the job or the way of self-realization that helps us take care of society and its future.

In the second case, we focus on ourselves, the satisfaction of our needs, on our own comfort. It would seem that in the era of global consumption this should become the norm, but, having chosen this pole, we often begin to feel the meaninglessness of life.

8. From 65 years to death

At 65, according to Erickson, old age sets in – a time to take stock, reflect, analyze achievements and failures. And, summing up such a result, we can understand that life is successful and we are generally satisfied with it. This awareness gives us a sense of ego integrity.

But as a result of a “revision” of our own life path, we can be overcome by a feeling of despair and hopelessness – because we did not use all the available opportunities, made irreparable mistakes, there was no point in our life.

It is in this case, writes Eric Erickson, that people fear the impending inevitability of death most of all. But it is never too late to rethink life, to have time to do something necessary and useful.