Erikson's stages of development are as follows:
Stage 1: Infancy
Infancy encompasses approximately the first year of life and parallels Freud's oral phase of development. Erikson's model adopts a broader focus than Freud's oral stage, which was concerned almost exclusively with the mouth. According to Erikson, infancy is a time of incorporation, with infants "taking in" not only through their mouth, but various sense organs as well.
Stage 2: Early Childhood
Early childhood parallels Freud's anal stage and emcompasses approximately the second and third years of life. Freud regarded the anus as the primary erogenous zone during this period and that during the early sadistic-anal phase, children recieve pleasure in destroying or losing objects, while later they take satisfaction in defecating. To Erikson, young children recieve pleasure not only from mastering the sphincter muscle, but also from mastering other body functions such as urinating, walking, throwing, holding, and so on.
Stage 3: Play Age
Play Age covers the same time as Freud's Phallic phase, being roughly three to five years of age. Freud placed the Oedipus complex at the core of the phallic stage. Erikson believed that the Oedipus complex is but one of several important developments during the play age. Erikson contended that, in addition to identifying with their parents, preschool-age children are developing locomotion, language skills, curiosity, imagination, and the ability to set goals.
Stage 4: School Age
Erikson's concept of school age covers development from about age six to approximately age twelve or thirteen and matches the latency years of Freud's theory. During this stage, the social world of children is expanding beyond family to include peers, teachers, and other adult models. For school-age children, their wish to know becomes strong and is tired to their basic striving for competence.
Stage 5: Adolescence
Adolescence is the period from puberty to early adulthood. It is one of the most crucial development stages because, by the end of the period, a person must gain a sense of identity. It is an adaptive phase of personality development, a period of trial and error.
Stage 6: Young Adulthood
People in young adulthood must acquire the ability to fuse the identity gained during adolescence with the identity of another person while maintaining their sense of individuality. This stage, which covers ages nineteen through thirty, is circumscribed not so much by time as by the acquisition of intimacy at the beginning of the stage and the development of generativity at the end. For some people, this stage is relatively short, lasting only a few years. For others, young adulthood may continue for several decades.
Stage 7: Adulthood
Adulthood is the time when people begin to take their place in society and assume responsibility for whatever society produces. For most people, this is the longest stage of development, spanning the years from about age thirty-one to sixty.
Stage 8: Old Age
This is the final stage of development. Erikson was in his early fortys when he first conceptualized this stage and arbitrarily defined it as the period from about age sixty to the end of life. This phase basically encompasses the idea that even though reproductive capabilities may be absent, old people can remain productive and creative in other ways. They can be caring grandparents of their grandchildren as well as other younger members of society. Old age can be a time of joy, playfulness, and wonder, but it is also a time of senility, depression, and despair.
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