Freud VS. Erikson
...nconscious level of thought. These instincts require immediate gratification. Development depends, in part, on transforming these animal needs into socially acceptable, rational behavior. The range of potential behavior is very broad at birth, and then becomes increasingly reduced in scope, fixed in form and, shaped to conform to social norms. Freud’s theory of development was a psychosexual one – children were said to pass through five psychosexual stages of development. However, Erikson’s theory of development converts Freud’s psychosexual theory to one of psychosocial stages of ego development. Erikson believed that the process of socializing the child into a given culture occurs as the person passes through eight innately determined, sequential stages. Although he recognized the individual’s instinctual drives, Erikson emphasized the child’s interaction with the environment. For Erikson, the events of later childhood can undo the personality foundations built earlier in life. While Freud believed that the sexual drive or "libido" was the essential force that drove personality, Erickson placed more emphasis on the influence of the parents and society. Freud's theory assumes that adult personality is essentially formed by age 5, and only describes personality development into adolescence. Both theorists emphasized the unconscious, but Erickson went beyond this to discuss the importance of the collective unconscious. Essential for the theory is the organism’s ability to deal with a series of crises throughout her or his lifespan. Each stage of life has a crisis that is related in some way to an element in society. The development of personality begins with strengths that commence at birth; as the child grows, strength is accrued, one quality at a time; each quality undergoing rapid growth at a critical period of development. Erikson's psychosocial sta...