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A Comparison of Freud and Erikson During the whole history of its development psychology was trying to obtain its own place among other sciences and to move out of the shadow casted by philosophy and sociology. Finally, field of psychology has grown to be respected as a science. Objectivity and scientific method both became integrated part of the psychologists mode of operation. However, even the greatest of psychologists can only theorize about what makes human beings act the way they do. Everything in this world is relative and open to speculation. In the field of psychology, there have been many different areas of interest, and general human development has always belonged to the most popular and contradicting areas of interest for those who explored psychology.
This paper will focus on important issues of general human development in terms of theories of Freud, Erikson, Bowlby, and Ainsworth. Being significant contributors to contemporary psychology Freud and Erikson have different ideas concerning human development. Each theorist developed ideas and stages for human development. Their theories on human development represent a sequence of stages every human being is passing. The peculiar characteristic of both theories is their original thought.
Thus, each theory differed on what these stages were. These theories also differed with their respect towards paradigmatic assumptions, learning and development, and relationship towards educational practice (Coon, 179). Freud left a great heritage after himself. Although some of his work has been dismissed, most of it still holds weight in the world of psychology today. Freud believed that inner forces fueled human development. He believed the most powerful of all inner forces was our sexual being.
However, discussing the sexual needs of children, Freud did not associate with sexual needs that an adult would experience. Children experienced sexual gratification in different ways. Sucking their thumbs or retaining their excrement could be seen as sexual gratification for small children. Freud also specified certain areas of our body as erogenous zones.
Those areas included the mouth and genitals. This all fit in to Freud's obsession with sex. His theory called psychodynamic could be labeled the psychosexual stages of development (Coon, 203). Freud believed human beings passed through different stages in their life based on which part of their body gratified them. Freud's psychosexual stages of development are five in total. The Oral stage takes place from birth to about one year.
During this stage, a child is orally oriented. The mouth is the child's erogenous zone. Everything a child touches is put in his mouth. Freud believes children do this because it gives them pleasure. When a child sucks his thumb, it does so because it gratifies them. According to Freud, the gratification is sexual (Freud, 141).
The second stage in Freud's psychosexual development theory takes place between the ages of two and three years of age. The erogenous zone shifts location, thus moving from one stage to another. The second erogenous zone in Freud's stages of human development is the anal region. Freud believes children experience sexual gratification during bowel movements and when they withhold bowel movements.
Some children may even experience pleasure handling, looking at, or thinking about their own feces. Once the Anal stage of development has been completed, the next stage of development for Freud is the Phallic Stage. This usually occurs at about three years of age. The shift in erogenous zones moves from the anal region to the genital organs. This stage is also known as the Oedipal Stage of psychosexual development.
During this stage, children take interest in their sexual organs. Soon they notice differences and similarities between themselves and their parents. Each sex wants to be with the parent of the other sex, for girls this is referred to as the elektra complex. Once the children realize they can not be with their mother or father, they identify with the parent of the same sex. The next stage is called the stage of Latency. A lack of change or absence of erogenous zones characterizes this stage.
After the realization that the child can not be with a parent sexually, the child shifts its attention to same-sexed relationships. Boys will shift their sexual urges and drives to something acceptable, such as sports. This is a time of relative calm. The last stage of Freud's psychodynamic theory is the Genital Stage. The erogenous zone returns in a very powerful way in the genital organs. This stage takes place from puberty into adulthood.
True sexual desire and sexual relationships mark this stage. Theory of human development by Freud was on of the earlier. It was called psychodynamic because it described dynamic, mostly unconscious, psychological processes that constantly help humans to adapt to the environment and deal with conflicts. Although now widely disputed, this theory discerned several truths about human nature - such as the ability of childhood events to influence later relationships and behavior (Anderson, 221). Freudian thinking is deeply imbedded in our culture, and constantly influences our view of human nature (Anderson, 79). Later Erikson took ideas of Freud and enhanced them.
He added stages for the adult years, thus Erikson's theory can be considered as a logical continuation of psychodynamic theory of Freud. The major difference of Erikson's psychosocial theory, which make it very peculiar, is a shift from sexuality to identity (Bee, 31). Traditionally, Erikson also developed the psychosocial stages of development. Erikson's first stage is during infancy. It deals with trust versus mistrust. The child develops an outlook on life and whether the world can be trusted or not.
The child develops trust if the parents give the child something it can rely on. According to Erikson, the child develops a sense of optimism or pessimism during this stage. The next stage in Erikson's psychosocial development is during early childhood and is known as autonomy versus shame and doubt. The child becomes autonomous and realizes he can say yes or no. This stage will determine whether a child develops a sense of self-certainty. Erikson's next stage takes place during the ages of three to six years.
This stage is marked by initiative versus guilt. This stage is important in developing the childs sense of enterprise. The child develops initiative when trying out new things and is not scared of failing. The fourth stage of Erikson's developmental theory takes place at about six years of age and lasts till puberty. This stage deals with. The child learns skills of the culture and must deal with feelings of inferiority.
Adolescence brings about the next stage for Erikson. This stage is known for identity versus identity confusion. During this stage, Erikson believes adolescents must develop a sense of self-awareness or knowing who they are. They develop a sense of identity. The sixth stage for Erikson is known for intimacy versus isolation. This stage takes place during young adulthood.
The person seeks commitments from others. If he is unsuccessful, he may take on isolation. Erikson believes this stage is important in learning love. The seventh stage for Erikson takes place during adulthood. It is marked by genera tivity versus stagnation.
During this stage, the adult is concerned with guiding the next generation. This stage according to Erikson gives the adult a sense of caring. Erikson's last and eighth stage takes place at a mature age. Old age is marked by integrity versus despair. During this time, the people may achieve a sense of acceptance of their own life, which in turn allows for the acceptance of death. When one passes through this last stage, Erikson believes that a person has achieved wisdom (Bee, 87).
Erikson's psychosocial theory of development is actually a modification and expansion of Freud's work. It was the first theory to extend the concept of stages of human development across the entire lifespan. Erikson, who coined the term identity crisis, saw development as being defined by a strong need to deal with certain problems that occur at different times in our lives (Burman, 304). People are constantly trying to understand who they are, and the greatest challenge is to develop a coherent sense of self. Erikson's theory heavily influenced the study of personality development, especially in adolescence and adulthood. However, comparing two theories, one can observe that they are similar by time and their sequence of life events; where they differ is in their focus.
Freud focuses on sex, Erikson focuses on the self and social orientation. Each theory is also useful when applied to its relationship to educational practices, and these different ideals guide teachers in the mystical theories of forever trying to understand human development, the mind, and its behaviors (Kail, 142). Significant contributions made by scholars Freud and Erikson were soon amplify with the Integrated Attachment Theory of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Unlike Erikson and Freud Bowlby and Ainsworth abstracted from the stages of development of a human, and instead they attempted to understand the intense distress experienced by infants who had been separated from their parents. This is the main reason why this theory is considered to be an integrated part of general human development theories. Bowlby observed that separated infants would go to extraordinary lengths (e.
g. , crying, clinging, frantically searching) in an attempt to either prevent separation from their parents or reestablish proximity to a missing parent. At the time, psychoanalytic writers held that these expressions were manifestations of immature defense mechanisms that were operating to repress emotional pain, but Bowlby noted that such expressions are common to a wide variety of mammalian species, and speculated that these behaviors may serve an evolutionary function. Drawing on ethological theory, Bowlby postulated that these attachment behaviors, such as crying and searching, were adaptive responses to separation from with a primary attachment figure - someone who provides support, protection, and care. Because human infants, like other mammalian infants, cannot feed or protect themselves, they are dependent upon the care and protection of older and wiser adults (Gauvain, 57). Bowlby argued that, over the course of evolutionary history, infants who were able to maintain proximity to an attachment figure (i. e. , by looking cute or by expressing in attachment behaviors) would be more likely to survive to a reproductive age.
According to Bowlby, a motivational-control system, what he called the attachment behavioral system, was gradually designed by natural selection to regulate proximity to an attachment figure. Many scientist believe that this point of Bowlby put his theory in between Darwin theory of natural selection and Freud's Psychodynamic Theory. Although Bowlby believed that the basic dynamics described above captured the normative dynamics of the attachment behavioral system, he recognized that there are individual differences in the way children appraise the accessibility of the attachment figure and how they regulate their attachment behavior in response to a threat. However, it was not until his colleague, Mary Ainsworth, began to systematically study infant-parent separations that a formal understanding of these individual differences was articulated. Ainsworth and her students developed a technique called the strange situation - a laboratory paradigm for studying infant-parent attachment. In the strange situation, 12 -month-old infants and their parents are brought to the laboratory and, systematically, separated and reunited.
In the strange situation, most children (i. e. , about 60 %) behave in the way implied by Bowlby's normative theory (Gauvain, 78). They become upset when the parent leaves the room, but, when he or she returns, they actively seek the parent and are easily comforted by him or her. Children who exhibit this pattern of behavior are often called secure. Other children (about 20 % or less) are ill-at-ease initially, and, upon separation, become extremely distressed. Importantly, when reunited with their parents, these children have a difficult time being soothed, and often exhibit conflicting behaviors that suggest they want to be comforted, but that they also want to punish the parent for leaving.
These children are often called anxious-resistant. The third pattern of attachment that Ainsworth and her colleagues documented is called avoid ant. Avoid ant children (about 20 %) do not appear too distressed by the separation, and, upon reunion, actively avoid seeking contact with their parent, sometimes turning their attention to play objects on the laboratory floor (Gauvain, 91). Ainsworth's work was important for at least three reasons.
First, she provided one of the first empirical demonstrations of how attachment behavior is patterned in both safe and frightening contexts. Second, she provided the first empirical taxonomy of individual differences in infant attachment patterns. According to her research, at least three types of children exist: those who are secure in their relationship with their parents, those who are anxious-resistant, and those who are anxious-avoid ant. Finally, she demonstrated that these individual differences were correlated with infant-parent interactions in the home during the first year of life. Children who appear secure in the strange situation, for example, tend to have parents who are responsive to their needs. Children who appear insecure in the strange situation (i.
e. , anxious-resistant or avoid ant) often have parents who are insensitive to their needs, or inconsistent or rejecting in the care they provide (Zigler, 133). From the critical point of view, Bowlby's and Ainsworth's theory was the first theory to focus primarily on the formation of parent-child relationships. Both scholars described, and provided empirical evidence for, the specific processes that brought about parent-child attachment. Their research indicated that strong parent-child attachment was not just important, but necessary to the survival and healthy development of children. This theory explains the connection between early relationships and later relationships, including romantic ones. Attachment theory has generated thousands of scientific studies, and has led to changes in many childcare policies, such as those allowing parents to stay with their children in hospitals.
Moreover, this theory was the first one which was practically examined in the full meaning of this definition. Among other theories it is strictly distinguished very much by many scholars and psychologists. In my opinion, it is not another coincidence. Bibliography: Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application, 7 th Edition. Minnesota: West Publishing Company, 1995.
Freud, Sigmund. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Brill, A. A. : Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc. , July 1979. Anderson, Clifford. The Stages of Life: A Groundbreaking Discovery: The Steps to Psychological Maturity.
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. Bee, Helen L. Lifespan Development. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994. Burman, Erica.
Deconstructing Developmental Psychology. New York: Routledge, 1994. Kail, Robert V. , and John C. Cavanaugh. Human Development. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1996.
Gauvain, Mary, and Michael Cole. Readings on the Development of Children. New York: Scientific American Books, 1993. Zigler, Edward, and Mail Finn-Stevenson. Children in a Changing World: Development and Social Issues. 2 d ed.
Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1993. Additional reading: Feldman, Robert. Understanding Psychology, Sec. Ed. , McGraw-Hill, 1990
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