Comparing the differences between the Freud’s and Erickson’s theories, it is necessary to point out that the stages in Freud’s theories were psychosexual, and the stages in Erikson’s theories were psychosocially oriented. The theory of psychoanalysis, which served as a base for numerous psychoanalytic theories, was developed at the late 19th century by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud. The follower of Freud Erik Erickson argued with this theory and “… focused his stages on the development and emergence of a sense of identity … [he] proposed that a person’s sense of identity … continued to develop and evolve throughout a person’s life … [and] focused on the importance of cultural demands [during child’s] age transitions” (Bee and Boyd, 2004, p. 257).
Unlike Erickson’s point of view, Freud’s opinion lays on the statement that human personality is based and develops through the early childhood experiences. As a founder of the psychoanalytic theory, Freud stated that those early experiences form human’s personality for the lifetime period, and therefore, most of the psychological problems which may appear in the adulthood might have their roots in traumatic and hard childhood experiences.
Opposite to Freud, Erickson denied the importance of instinctual unconscious factor drives in the development of personality. But Freud insisted that such powerful drives, for example sexual and aggressive ones, cause a great influence on the behavior of individual, while this individual is not aware of such process.
Erickson’s and Freud’s theories also differ in the number of stages. If refer to Freud then, “… child development consists of five psychosexual stages in which a particular body region is the focus of sensual satisfactions; the focus of pleasure shifts as children progress through the stages” (Bee and Boyd, 2004, p. 151). The oral stage, from birth to age one, focuses on the sensual pleasure and on the baby’s development of the emotional attachment through feeding.
The anal stage, from ages one to three, focuses on the control and self – control through the toilet training. The phallic stage, from age three to six, focuses on genital stimulation and sexes’ identification with one of their parents. The latency stage, from age seven to eleven, focuses on the sensual motives expressed through schoolwork. The genital stage, which lasts from adolescence through the period of adulthood, focuses on the individuals’ develop of the mature sexual interests.
Erik Erikson, the American psychoanalyst, proposed his own eight stages of personality growth, mainly backed and explained by social influences and experiences of the person within the family. Erikson’s stages trace the whole life course. Contrary to stages established by Freud, each of the Erikson’s stage contains of a social world’s conflict which has two possible outcomes. For example, in early childhood the conflict is “‘trust vs. mistrust’ based on whether the baby is confident that others will provide nurturance and care … [in the period of adolescence] … ‘identity vs. role confusion’ defines the teenager’s search for self – understanding” (Bee and Boyd, 2004, p. 248).
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that contrary to Freud’s theories, Erikson’s theory stands for the interaction for the improvement of the psychological growth, and draws up the idea of the social world, its stages lasts until death contrary to the Freud’s stages which end after puberty. Moreover, one may say that Freud’s theories’ stages can be defied as psychosexual, and Erikson’s – as psychosocial. Erikson relies on the idea of EGO development. Unlike him, Freud uses the deterministic approach in his studies.
References
Bee, Helen and Boyd, Denise. (2004). The Developing Child. (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson.