Erik Erikson is a follower of 3. Freud, who expanded psychoanalytic theory. He was able to go beyond it because he began to consider the development of the child in a larger system. social relations.

One of the central concepts of Erickson's theory is personal identity. Personality develops through inclusion in various social communities (nation, social class, professional group, etc.). Identity (social identity) determines the value system of the individual, ideals, life plans, needs, social roles with appropriate forms of behavior.

Identity is formed in adolescence, it is a characteristic of a fairly mature personality. Until that time, the child must go through a series of identifications - identifying himself with his parents; boys or girls (gender identity), etc. This process is determined by the upbringing of the child, since from the very birth of his parents, and then the wider social environment, they introduce him to their social community, group, transmit to the child the worldview inherent in it.

Another important proposition of Erickson's theory is development crisis. Crises are inherent in all age stages, these are “turning points”, moments of choice between progress and regression. At each age, personality neoplasms acquired by a child can be positive, associated with the progressive development of the personality, and negative, causing negative shifts in development, his regression.

According to Erickson, a person experiences 8 psychosocial crises.

First crisis the person is worried about first year of life (infancy). It is related to whether or not the basic physiological needs of the child are met by the person caring for him. And the child develops trust or distrust in the world. If a child treats the world with confidence, then without much anxiety and anger he endures the disappearance of his mother from his field of vision: he is sure that she will return, that all his needs will be satisfied.

The second crisis occurs at an early age when the child begins to walk and assert his independence. This crisis is associated with the first experience of learning, especially with teaching the child to cleanliness. If the parents understand the child and help him, the child gains the experience of autonomy. Otherwise, the child develops shame or doubt.

If adults make too severe demands, often blame and punish the child, he develops constant alertness, stiffness, and lack of communication. If a child's desire for independence is not

Suppressed by parents, then the child easily cooperates with other people in the future.

The third crisis corresponds to the second childhood(preschool age). 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. If adults punish too often even for minor offenses, then mistakes cause a constant feeling of guilt. Then the initiative is inhibited, and passivity develops.

The fourth crisis occurs in the early school years. 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 teenagers in search of identification (assimilation of patterns of behavior that are significant for them people). All previous identifications of the child are combined, and new ones are added to them, because. the matured child is included in new social groups and acquires other ideas about himself.

The adolescent's inability to identify, or the difficulties associated with it, can lead to role confusion. Also in this case, the teenager experiences anxiety, a feeling of isolation and emptiness.

The sixth crisis is peculiar to young adults. It is associated with the search for intimacy with a loved one. 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 40. This period of life is characterized by high productivity and creativity in various fields. And if the evolution of married life goes in a different way, then it can freeze in a state of pseudo-closeness.

The eighth crisis is experienced during aging. Completion of the life path, achievement by a person of the integrity of life. 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.

Literature: G.A. Kuraev, E.N. Pozharskaya. Age-related psychology. L.Ts. Kagermazova. Age-related psychology.
Stage Normal line of development Anomalous line of development
1. Early infancy (from birth to 1 year) Trust in people. Mutual love, affection, mutual recognition of parents and the child, satisfaction of the needs of children in communication and other vital needs. Distrust of people as a result of a mother's mistreatment of a child, ignoring, neglecting him, deprivation of love. Too early or abrupt weaning of the child from the breast, his emotional isolation.
2. Late infancy (1 to 3 years old) Self-reliance, self-confidence. The child sees himself as an independent, separate person, but still dependent on his parents. Self-doubt and an exaggerated sense of shame. The child feels unfit, doubts his abilities, experiences deprivation, deficiencies in the development of elementary motor skills, such as walking. He has a poorly developed speech, there is a strong desire to hide his inferiority from the people around him.
3. Early childhood (about 3-5 years old) Curiosity and activity. Lively imagination and interested study of the world around, imitation of adults, inclusion in sex-role behavior. Passivity and indifference to people. Lethargy, lack of initiative, infantile feeling of envy of other children, depression and evasiveness, lack of signs of sex-role behavior. Feelings of inferiority.
4. Middle childhood (from 5 to 11 years old) Diligence. A pronounced sense of duty and desire to achieve success. Development of cognitive and communicative skills and abilities. Setting and solving real problems. The focus of the game and fantasy on the best prospects. Active assimilation of instrumental and substantive actions, task-oriented. Weak work skills. Avoidance difficult tasks, situations of competition with other people. An acute sense of inferiority, doomed to remain mediocre all his life. Feeling of a temporary "calm before the storm" or puberty. Conformity, slavish behavior. The feeling of futility of the efforts made in solving various problems.
5. Puberty, adolescence and adolescence (11 to 20 years old) Life self-determination. Development of time perspective - plans for the future. Self-determination in questions: what to be? and who to be? Active self-discovery and experimentation in different roles. Teaching. A clear gender polarization in the forms of interpersonal behavior. The formation of a worldview. Assuming leadership in peer groups and subordinating to them when necessary. Role confusion. Displacement and confusion of time perspectives: the appearance of thoughts not only about the future and present, but also about the past. The concentration of mental strength on self-knowledge, a strongly expressed desire to understand oneself to the detriment of developing relationships with outside world and people. Half-role fixation. Loss of labor activity. Mixing forms of gender-role behavior, roles, in leadership. Confusion in moral and ideological attitudes.
6. Early adulthood (20 to 45 years old) Closeness to people. The desire for contacts with people, the desire and ability to devote oneself to people. Birth and upbringing of children. Love and work. Satisfaction with personal life. . Isolation from people. Avoidance of people, especially close, intimate relationships with them. Difficulties of character, promiscuous relationships and unpredictable behavior. Non-recognition, isolation, the first symptoms of mental disorders, mental disorders arising under the influence of threatening forces that allegedly exist and operate in the world.
7. Average adulthood (from 40-45 to 60 years old) Creation. Productive and creative work on yourself and with other people. Mature, full and varied life. Satisfaction with family relationships and a sense of pride in their children. Education and upbringing of the new generation. Stagnation. Egoism and egocentrism. Unproductive at work. early disability. Self-forgiveness and exceptional self-care.
8. Late adulthood (over 60 years old) The fullness of life. Constant thoughts about the past, its calm, balanced assessment. Acceptance of life as it is. Feeling the fullness and usefulness of the life lived. The ability to come to terms with the inevitable. Understanding that death is not terrible. Despair. The feeling that life has been lived in vain, that there is too little time left, that it runs too fast. Awareness of the meaninglessness of one's existence, loss of faith in oneself and in other people. The desire to live life anew, the desire to get more out of it than was received. Feeling the lack of order in the world, the presence of an unkind, unreasonable beginning in it. Fear of approaching death.

E. Erickson identified eight stages of development, correlated with the crises of age development described above. At the first stage, the development of the child is determined almost exclusively by the interaction of adults with him, primarily the mother. At this stage, there may already be prerequisites for the manifestation in the future of striving for people or moving away from them.

The second stage determines the formation of such personal qualities like independence and self-confidence. Their formation also largely depends on the nature of communication and treatment of adults with the child. By the age of three, the child already acquires certain personal forms of behavior, and here E. Erickson argues in accordance with the data experimental studies. One can argue about the legitimacy of reducing all development specifically to communication and treatment of the child by adults (research proves the important role in this process of objective joint activity), but the fact that a three-year-old child already behaves like a small person is almost beyond doubt.

The third and fourth stages of development, according to E. Erickson, also generally coincide with the ideas of D. B. Elkonin and other Russian psychologists. This concept also emphasizes the importance of educational and labor activities for the mental development of the child in these years. But, unlike our scientists, E. Erickson focuses on the formation of not cognitive skills and abilities, but personality traits associated with the corresponding types of activity: initiative, activity and diligence (at the positive pole of development), passivity, unwillingness to work and an inferiority complex in relation to labor, intellectual abilities (at the negative pole of development). The next stages of personal development are not presented in the theories of domestic psychologists, but we can agree that the acquisition of new life and social roles makes a person look at the world in a new way, pushing for personal development at an older age.

At the same time, the line of abnormal personality development outlined by E. Erickson for these ages raises an objection. It clearly looks pathological, while this development can take on other forms. Obviously, E. Erickson's system of views was strongly influenced by psychoanalysis and clinical practice. At each of the stages of development he singled out, the author points out only certain points that explain its course, and only some personality neoplasms characteristic of the corresponding age. Without proper attention, for example, in the early stages child development what remains is the assimilation and use of speech by the child, and mostly only in abnormal forms.

Nevertheless, this concept contains a significant part of the truth of life, and most importantly, it allows us to imagine the importance of the childhood period in the entire process of a person’s personal development.

Almost all personality theories are based on the assumption that personality as a socio-psychological phenomenon is a vitally stable formation . The stability of a person characterizes the sequence of her actions and the predictability of her behavior, gives her actions a natural character.

Feeling of stability self and the personality of another - an important condition for the internal well-being of a person and the establishment of normal relationships with people around him. If the personality were not stable in the manifestations essential for communication with people, then it would be difficult for people to interact with each other, to achieve mutual understanding: after all, each time they would have to re-adapt to a person and would not be able to predict his behavior.

However, many studies have found that human behavior is variable. To what extent and in what way is the personality and its behavior really stable?

In line with different theories of personality, this issue can be resolved in different ways. It is shown, for example, that even personality traits that should be a model of constancy (and a factor identified as a result of factor analysis should have such constancy) are in fact not constant and stable. There are also so-called "situational traits", the manifestation of which can vary from situation to situation in the same person, and quite significantly.

Along with this, longitudinal (long-term) studies of the development of the same people over, for example, a decade or more show that a certain degree of stability is still present in a person, although the measure of this constancy for various personal properties is not the same.

In one of these studies, conducted over a period of 35 years, recruiting personal characteristics more than 100 people were evaluated. The first time they were examined at the age corresponding to incomplete secondary school, then - in the senior classes. high school and further - at the age of about 35 and 46 years. Within a three-year period from the time of the first examination to the second (after graduation) significant positive correlations were obtained for 58% of personality variables. For more than 30 years of research, since adolescence and up to 45 years, significant correlations were obtained 31% of all studied personality characteristics. Not only personal qualities, assessed from the outside, but also self-assessments turned out to be very persistent over time.

It was found that personal stability is not characteristic of all people. Some develop dramatic personality changes over time, so profound that people around them don't recognize them as individuals at all. The most significant changes of this kind can occur during adolescence, adolescence and early adulthood, for example in the range from 20 to 40-45 years.

In addition, there are significant individual differences in the time when a person's personality traits stabilize. In some people, the personality becomes stable in childhood and then does not change significantly, while in others, stability is detected quite late: only at the age of 20 to 40 years. The latter most often include people whose external and internal life in adolescence and youth was characterized by tension, contradictions and conflicts. The people who at school age did not encounter contradictions and did not come into conflict with adults, peers, social values ​​and norms change least of all in personality and early reveal stable character traits.

Much less stability of behavioral reactions of personality manifestations is found when we consider a person not for a long period of time, but from situation to situation. Except for intelligence and cognitive abilities many other personality characteristics are situationally unstable (for example, aggressive behavior, honesty, self-regulation, dependence).

In typical situations, the correlation between personality traits assessed using questionnaire tests and the corresponding social behavior turned out to be less than 0.30. This is not enough to accurately predict how a given person will behave in a particular situation.

The greatest stability is possessed by dynamic features associated with congenital anatomical and physiological inclinations, properties nervous system . These include temperament, emotional reactivity, extraversion-introversion, and some others.

Supporters of social learning theory, emphasizing the importance of a particular situation in determining a person's course of action, believe that the opinion that he has stable personality traits is not sufficiently substantiated and is usually associated with such typical erroneous conclusions:

1. Many individual characteristics people (physical appearance, manner of speaking, behaving, facial expressions, gestures, etc.) are really stable. This prompts us to attribute stability to other, internal psychological properties of a person.

2. Our experience of communicating with people forms a stable idea about them, which leaves an imprint on the subsequent perception and evaluation of these people. Because of the formed attitude, we tend to notice signs in a person in a new situation that indicate the stability of his behavior, and not see what is changing in his behavior.

3. Our very presence in a certain situation already causes the other person to behave consistently, the way he behaved with us before. The same persons who behave with us in a certain way, demonstrating the stability of their personality in some features, may behave differently with others, showing variability in the same features, and stability in some others.

Thus, the answer to the question of personality stability is ambiguous. In some properties, as a rule, those that were acquired in later periods of life and are of little importance, there is no stability; in other personal qualities, most often basic and acquired in the early years, one way or another determined organically, it is. The real behavior of the individual, stable and changeable, depends significantly on the constancy of the social situations in which we observe the person.

In studies conducted on the same people over a long period of time in order to establish the degree of variability or constancy of their personality, it has been shown that more than half of the personality traits with which a child enters school is retained until graduation. This indicates that many personal characteristics of a person, being formed at preschool age, subsequently retain their constancy, and also that schooling has little effect on the development of the child's own personal properties.

It turned out that the most sustainability from childhood to adulthood in adolescence and early adolescence, they discover striving for success, perseverance, level of claims (especially high), intellectual interests. Girls, moreover, aesthetic tastes and sociability. A certain stability in adolescence, subject to their formation in earlier years, have abilities, responsibility, willpower, friendliness and openness.

Of no less value and vital significance than the constancy of human behavior is its variability , adaptability . The ability to adapt to changing conditions of life, to change oneself as a person, if necessary, seems to be very valuable for a person. If a person today is different than yesterday, it means that he is developing.

Age periods of human development, which are important to know as teachers who develop the personality of children of different ages, as well as for everyone, regardless of age

Erik Erickson was a developmental psychologist
and a psychoanalyst. Best known for his stage theory
psychosocial development, and also as the author of the term identity crisis.

Erickson's epigenetic theory of personality development is one of the most authoritative, proven theories of personality development. Personal development is interesting not only for psychologists. Personal development is also important for teachers who develop the personality of children of different ages, personal development is important for businessmen interested in developing the personality of their employees, personal development is important and simply for people who want to develop their personality.

Erikson's book Childhood and Society (Erikson, 1963) presents his "eight ages of man" model. According to Erickson, all people in their development go through eight crises, or conflicts. Psychosocial adaptation, achieved by a person at each stage of development, at a later age can change its character, sometimes radically.

For example, children who were deprived of love and warmth in infancy may become normal adults if additional attention was given to them in later stages.

However, the nature of psychosocial adaptation to conflicts plays an important role in the development of a particular person. The resolution of these conflicts is cumulative, and how a person adjusts to life at each stage of development influences how they deal with the next conflict.

So, here are eight age periods of human development according to Erickson:

0-1 year

At this tender and fragile age, the most important quality is formed - the ability to trust people and hope for the best. If the baby did not receive enough love and attention, a distrustful, withdrawn personality may subsequently form.

1-3 years

At the age of three, children often become capricious, tend to insist on their own. And no wonder: at this time, the most important quality of a person is formed - the will. Under favorable conditions, a small person emerges from this crisis independent and self-confident.

3-5 years

From three to five years old, children are mainly busy playing with their peers, comprehending the basic social laws. At this time, initiative, activity, purposefulness of the child, his readiness for communication are formed. If the parents were overly "caring" and did not allow the child to actively explore the world, protecting him from all sorts of "dangers", a very "lazy" person can come out of this crisis.

5-11 years old

The beginning of a productive study - the very first labor of a child. At this time, a person begins to understand the value of life achievements, the need to make efforts in order to get what they want, including the respect of others.

11-20 years old

At this time, an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bone's own uniqueness is formed. Man seeks himself, asks himself important questions, is determined with the direction of life. It is at this age that the foundations of the worldview are laid, the picture of the world becomes conscious and bright.

20-40 years old

This is the period when ideas about life are being revised, the value and significance of the people around are realized. And it is precisely this crisis that a person must go through on his own - he can no longer be helped or hindered.

40-60 years old

60 years

In the last stages of life, people usually review the life they have lived and evaluate it in a new way. If a person, looking back at his life, is satisfied because it was filled with meaning and active participation in events, then he comes to the conclusion that he did not live in vain and fully realized what was allotted to him by fate. Then he accepts his life as a whole, as it is. But, if life seems to him a waste of energy and a series of missed opportunities, he has a feeling of despair. Obviously, this or that resolution of this last conflict in a person's life depends on the cumulative experience gained in the course of resolving all previous conflicts.

The stages of development identified by Erickson extend to the internal drives of the individual and to the attitudes of parents and other members of society to these forces. In addition, Erickson considers these stages as periods of life during which a person acquires life experience dictates to him the need for the most important adaptations to the social environment and changes in his own personality. Although the way a person resolves these conflicts is influenced by the attitudes of his parents, social environment also has a huge impact.

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PERIODIZATION OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT ACCORDING TO E. ERICKSON

Eric Erickson- a follower of 3. Freud, who expanded the psychoanalytic theory. He was able to go beyond it by beginning to consider the development of the child in a wider system of social relations.

The features of the formation of a personality depend on the economic and cultural level of development of the society in which the child grows up, on what historical stage of this development he found. A child living in New York in the middle of the 20th century does not develop in the same way as a small Indian from a reservation, where the old cultural traditions are preserved in their entirety and time seems to have stopped.

The values ​​and norms of society are passed on to children in the process of education. Children belonging to communities of almost the same level of socioeconomic development develop different personality traits due to different cultural traditions associated with the main type of activity and adopted parenting styles. In different Indian reservations, E. Erickson observed two tribes - the Sioux, former buffalo hunters, and the Yurok, fishermen and acorn gatherers. In the Sioux tribe, children are not swaddled tightly, breast-fed for a long time, they do not strictly monitor neatness, and in general there is little restriction on their freedom of action. Children are guided by the historically established ideal of their tribe - a strong and courageous hunter on the endless prairies - and acquire such traits as initiative, determination, courage, generosity in relations with fellow tribesmen and cruelty towards enemies. In the Yurok tribe, on the contrary, children are weaned early, swaddled tightly, accustomed to neatness early, restrained in communicating with them. They grow up silent, suspicious, stingy, prone to hoarding.

Personal development in its content is determined by what society expects from a person, what values ​​and ideals it offers, what tasks it sets for him at different age stages. But the sequence of stages in the development of a child depends on the biological principle. The child, maturing, necessarily goes through a series of successive stages. At each stage, he acquires a certain quality (personal neoplasm), which is fixed in the structure of the personality and persists in subsequent periods of life.

Until the age of 17-20, there is a slow, gradual formation of the main nuclear formation - personal identity. The personality develops through inclusion in various social communities (nation, social class, professional group, etc.) and experiencing its inextricable connection with them. Identity - 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 with appropriate forms of behavior. Identity is a condition of mental health: if it does not develop, a person does not find himself, his place in society, turns out to be "lost".

Identity is formed in adolescence, it is a characteristic of a fairly mature personality. Until that time, the child must go through a series of identifications - identification with parents, boys or girls (gender identification), etc. This process is determined by the upbringing of the child, since from the very birth of his parents, and then the wider social environment, they introduce him to their social community, group, transmit to the child the worldview inherent in it.

Another important moment for the development of personality is crisis. Crises are inherent in all age stages, these are "turning points", moments of choice between progress and regression. Each personal quality that manifests itself at a certain age contains a person's deep attitude to the world and to himself. This attitude can be positive, associated with the progressive development of the personality, and negative, causing negative shifts in development, its regression. A child and then an adult have to choose one of two polar attitudes - trust or distrust in the world, initiative or passivity, competence or inferiority, etc. When the choice is made and the corresponding quality of the personality, let's say positive, is fixed, the opposite pole of the relationship continues to openly exist and can manifest itself much later, when an adult person encounters a serious life failure.

Table 1.4

Stages of personality development according to E. Erickson

Development stage

Area of ​​social relations

Polar personality traits

The result of progressive development

1. Infancy (0-1)

Mother or her substitute

Trust in the world - mistrust in the world

Energy and life joy

2. Early childhood (1-3)

Parents

Independence - shame, doubt

Independence

3. Childhood (3-6)

Parents, brothers and sisters

Initiative - passivity, guilt

purposefulness

4. School age (6-12)

School, neighbors

Competence - inferiority

Mastering knowledge and skills

5. Adolescence and youth (12-20)

Peer groups

Personal identity - non-recognition

Self-determination, devotion and loyalty

6. Early maturity (20-25)

Friends, loved ones

Proximity - isolation

cooperation, love

7. Average age (25-65)

Profession, native home

Productivity - stagnant

Creativity and care

8. Late maturity (after 65)

Humanity, neighbors

Personal integrity - despair

Wisdom

At the first stage of development (oral-sensory), corresponding to infancy, there is trust or distrust of the world. With the progressive development of personality, the child "chooses" a trusting relationship. It manifests itself in light feeding, deep sleep, relaxation of internal organs, normal bowel function. A child who trusts the world that surrounds him, without much anxiety and anger, endures the disappearance of his mother from his field of vision: he is sure that she will return, that all his needs will be satisfied. The baby receives from the mother not only milk and the care he needs, the "nourishment" of the world of forms, colors, sounds, caresses, smiles is also connected with her. Maternal love and tenderness determines the "quantity" of faith and hope taken from the child's first life experience.

At this time, the child, as it were, "absorbs" the image of the mother (there is a mechanism of introjection). This is the first step in the formation of the identity of a developing personality.

The second stage (musculo-anal) corresponds to an early age. The possibilities of the child sharply increase, he begins to walk and defend his independence. But the growing feeling independence should not undermine the trust in the world that has been established in the past. Parents help to keep it, limiting the desires that appear in the child to demand, appropriate, destroy when he tests his strength.

The demands and limitations of the parents at the same time create the basis for negative feelings. shame and doubt. The child feels the "eyes of the world" watching him with condemnation, strives to make the world not look at him, or wants to become invisible himself. But this is impossible, and the "inner eyes of the world" appear in the child - shame for his mistakes, awkwardness, dirty hands, etc. If adults make too severe demands, often blame and punish the child, he has a fear of "losing face", constant alertness, stiffness, and lack of communication. If the child's desire for independence is not suppressed, a correlation is established between the ability to cooperate with other people and insist on one's own, between freedom of expression and its reasonable restriction.

At the third stage (locomotor-genital), coinciding with preschool age, the child actively learns the world around him, models in the game the relations of adults that have developed in production and in other areas of life, quickly and eagerly learns everything, acquiring new tasks and responsibilities. Added to independence initiative.

When the child's behavior becomes aggressive, the initiative is limited, feelings of guilt and anxiety appear; in this way, new internal instances are laid - conscience and moral responsibility for one's actions, thoughts and desires. Adults should not overload the conscience of the child. Excessive disapproval, punishments for minor offenses and mistakes cause a constant feeling of guilt, fear of punishment for secret thoughts, vindictiveness. Initiative slows down, develops passivity.

At this age stage, gender identity and the child masters a certain form of male or female behavior.

Junior school age - prepubertal, i.e. pre-puberty child. At this time, the fourth stage (latent) is unfolding, associated with the upbringing of industriousness in children, the need to master new knowledge and skills. The school becomes for them a "culture in itself", with its own specific goals, achievements and disappointments. Comprehension of the basics of work and social experience enables the child to gain the recognition of others and acquire a sense of competence. If the achievements are small, he acutely experiences his ineptitude, inability, disadvantageous position among his peers and feels doomed to be mediocre. Instead of a sense of competence, there is a sense of inferiority.

The period of primary schooling is also the beginning professional identification feelings of connection with representatives of certain professions.

Adolescence and youth constitute the fifth stage of personality development, the period of the deepest crisis. Childhood is coming to an end, and this long stage of the life path, ending, leads to the formation identity. It combines and transforms all the child's previous identifications; new ones are added to them, since the matured, outwardly changed child is included in new social groups and acquires other ideas about himself. The holistic identity of the individual, trust in the world, independence, initiative and competence allow the young man to solve the main task that society sets for him - the task of self-determination of the choice of life path.

When it is not possible to realize oneself and one's place in the world, one observes diffuseness of identity. It is associated with an infantile desire not to enter into a relationship for as long as possible.

adulthood, with a vague, persistent state of anxiety, a sense of isolation and emptiness. Diffuse identity can manifest itself in a hostile rejection of social roles that are desirable for the family and the inner circle of a young man (male or female, national, professional, class, etc.), in contempt for everything domestic and overestimation of the foreign, in the desire to "become nothing" ( if this is the only way to assert yourself).

In early maturity, at the sixth stage, an adult faces a problem closeness(intimacy). It is at this time that true sexuality manifests itself. But a person is ready for intimacy with another, not only sexually, but also socially. After a period of searching and asserting his own identity, he is ready to "merge" it with the identity of the one he loves. A close relationship with a friend or loved one requires loyalty, self-sacrifice and moral strength. The desire for them should not be drowned out by the fear of losing one's "I".

The third decade of life is the time of creating a family. It brings love, understood by E. Zrikson in the erotic, romantic and moral sense. In marriage, love is manifested in care, respect and responsibility for a life partner.

The inability to love, to establish close trusting relationships with other people, the preference for superficial contacts leads to isolation, a feeling of loneliness.

Maturity, or average age, - the seventh stage of personality development, unusually long. Decisive here is "man's attitude to the products of his labor and to his offspring", concern for the future of mankind. Man strives for productivity and creativity, to the realization of one's ability to pass something on to the next generation - one's own experience, ideas, created works of art, etc.

The desire to contribute to the life of future generations is natural, at this age it is realized, first of all, in relations with children. E. Erickson emphasizes the dependence of the older generation in the family on the younger.

A mature person needs to be needed.

If productivity is not achieved, if there is no need to take care of other people, deeds or ideas, then indifference, self-centeredness appears. Anyone who indulges himself like a child comes to stagnation, impoverishment of his personal life.

The last stage late maturity, becomes integrative: at this time "the fruits of the seven previous stages ripen." Man accepts what he has passed life path as it should and acquires the integrity of the individual.

Only now is wisdom emerging. A look into the past makes it possible to say: "I am satisfied." Children and creative achievements are perceived as an extension of oneself, and the fear of death disappears.

People who are dissatisfied with the life they have lived and consider it a chain of mistakes and unrealized opportunities do not feel the integrity of their "I". The inability to change something in the past, to start living again is annoying, one's own shortcomings and failures seem to be the result of unfavorable circumstances, and approaching the last frontier of life causes despair.

According to Erickson, all people in their development go through eight crises, or conflicts. Psychosocial adaptation, achieved by a person at each stage of development, at a later age can change its character, sometimes radically. For example, children who were deprived of love and warmth in infancy may become normal adults if additional attention was given to them in later stages. However, the nature of psychosocial adaptation to conflicts plays an important role in the development of a particular person. The resolution of these conflicts is cumulative, and how a person adjusts to life at each stage of development influences how they deal with the next conflict.

According to Erickson's theory, specific developmental conflicts become critical only at certain points in the life cycle. At each of the eight stages of personality development, one of the developmental tasks, or one of these conflicts, becomes more important than others. However, despite the fact that each of the conflicts is critical only at one of the stages, it is present throughout life. For example, the need for autonomy is especially important for children aged 1 to 3 years, but throughout life people must constantly check the degree of their independence, which they can show each time they enter into new relationships with other people. The stages of development given below are represented by their poles. In fact, no one becomes completely trusting or distrustful: in fact, people vary in their degree of trust or distrust throughout their lives.

The stages of development identified by Erickson extend to the inner drives of the individual and to the relationship of parents and other members of society to these forces. In addition, Erickson considers these stages as periods of life during which the life experience acquired by the individual dictates to him the need for the most important adaptations to the social environment and changes in his own personality. Although the way in which an individual resolves these conflicts is influenced by the attitudes of his parents, the social environment also has an exceptionally large influence.

Crisis of three years.

The crisis of three years (for the first time was described by E. Koehler in the work “On the personality of a three-year-old child”) attracted the attention of V. Stern, S. Buhler. However, the interpretation of the crisis of three years was predominantly negative and was seen as a "growing pain". In domestic psychology, starting with the works of L.S. Vygotsky, the crisis was considered in its positive meaning - the formation of a fundamentally new system social relations of the child with the world, taking into account his growing independence. Behind every negative symptom of the crisis, L.S. Vygotsky taught to see a positive achievement - a neoplasm that reflects the increased capabilities of the child. D.B. Elkonin called the crisis of three years a crisis of independence and emancipation from adults.

The emergence of this crisis is based on the contradiction of two tendencies that equally determine the vital activity and activity of the child. The first is the desire to take part in the life of adults and the disintegration of the former joint objective activity, already mastered by the child. The second is the assertion of independence through the possibility of implementing independent intentions and actions - “I myself!”. In the pre-critical phase, one can observe a number of symptoms indicating that the child identifies himself as an independent subject: a keen interest in his image in the mirror; interest in his appearance and how he looks in the eyes of others. Girls have an interest in outfits; boys begin to show concern for the success of their activities, for example, in designing. They react strongly to failure and failure. The crisis of three years is one of the most acute in terms of behavioral symptoms. The child becomes uncontrollable, easily falls into anger and rage. Former educational methods fail, the behavior is almost impossible to correct. The crisis period of three years is very difficult for both the adult and the child himself.

Early age ends with the crisis "I myself!" - the birth of the subject as an autonomous personality with independent intentions, goals and desires, embodied in the system I (L.I. Bozhovich) and personal action (D.B. Elkonin). It is based on the achievement by the child of a new level of autonomy and independence, which leads to the transition to the era of childhood.