Erikson’s Timeline Essay

According to Erikson, there are eight stages of life. They are infancy, early childhood, childhood (play age), childhood (school age), adolescents and young adulthood. I just turned 34 this month and I know psychologically that I am in the adulthood portion of my life. Over the years I have caught myself asking questions like; who am I? And how do I fit myself into society? I would say over 10 years ago I began the sixth stage of my life, intimacy versus isolation. When I finished high school I thought I found that special person until I noticed that we became different people. I wanted more out of someone to be able to date and be able to fall in love with the right person. The relationship between the two stages is complex and many people define themselves through intimate relationships with others; and other proper sequence of the stages can be reversed in many people. Woman in the society traditionally exemplified a merging of intimacy and identify issues such as woman identify b eing defined by her intimate relationships. Sometimes it can be hard to separate the differences between the development of intimate relationships and adult itself. Erikson believes that a person is unable to be truly intimate with others until he or she has made progress with addressing their own identity. Marcia’s, the researcher for identity status, developed a similar idea with addressing their own identity. Macias also developed an idea designed to determine the quality of intimacy in a person’s life. A person answered several questions about dating, friendship, and interpersonal he or she commitments may be classified into four categories; Intimate-works at developing mutual personal relationships, has several close friends, involved in a committed love relationship, and is able to express both affectionate and angry feelings in the relationship. Pre-intimate- is a person who has dated but is involved in a committed love relationship, is aware of the possibilities of relating intimately with others, and feels conflicted about commitment and love relationships. Stereotyped- constricted and immature person who has not gone beyond superficial dating relationships, has several friends but they lack significant depth, and he/she dates regularly but does not get involved. Isolated- lacks endurance personal relationships, rarely dates and the person tend to be anxious and immature lacking assertiveness and social skills. If I were to do a test on myself I would say that I am a very mature person who knows what she wants in life because when I am with a person I am very committed and try my hardest to make things work. I would never cheat or do anything to hurt the person that I am with. I don’t have any problems expressing my feelings to my partner. I have a friend who refuses to be in a relationship. I feel that she still has a lot of growing up to do and she enjoys playing with other people’s feelings. These people don’t know what love is yet and might not ever open that page for someone else. As for me I know what love is and what it takes to have a good solid relationship. References: McAdams, (2006) The person: A new introduction to personality psychology (4th ed.) Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons.