Personality Characteristics and Erickson’s Theory

1. the types of personality characteristics associated with Erickson’s theory. © BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com March 21, 2019, 6:59 pm ad1c9bdddf
https://brainmass.com/psychology/abnormal-psychology/personality-characteristics-ericksons-theory-275305

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Erikson was a Neo-Freudian. He has been described as an “ego psychologist” studying the stages of development, spanning the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development are marked by a conflict, for which successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome, for example, trust vs. mistrust, and by an important event that this conflict resolves itself around, for example, meaning of one’s life.

Favorable outcomes of each stage are sometimes known as “virtues“, a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it is applied to medicines, meaning “potencies.” For example, the virtue that would emerge from successful resolution. Oddly, and certainly counter-intuitively, Erikson’s research suggests that each individual must learn how to hold both extremes of each specific life-stage challenge in tension with one another, not rejecting one end of the tension or the other. Only when both extremes in a life-stage challenge are understood and accepted as both required and useful, can the optimal virtue for that …