Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Erikson: Post−Freudian
Theory
(^268) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
Generalized
Sensuality
The final psychosexual
stage is generalized sen-
suality. Erikson had little
to say about this mode of
psychosexual life, but
one may infer that it
means to take pleasure in
a variety of different phys-
ical sensations—sights,
sounds, tastes, odors, em-
braces, and perhaps geni-
tal stimulation. General-
ized sensuality may also
include a greater apprecia-
tion for the traditional
lifestyle of the opposite
sex. Men become more
nurturant and more accep-
tant of the pleasures of
nonsexual relationships, including those with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Women become more interested and involved in politics, finance, and world affairs
(Erikson, Erikson, & Kivnick, 1986). A generalized sensual attitude, however, is de-
pendent on one’s ability to hold things together, that is, to maintain integrity in the
face of despair.
Integrity Versus Despair
A person’s final identity crisis is integrity versus despair.At the end of life, the dys-
tonic quality of despair may prevail, but for people with a strong ego identity who
have learned intimacy and who have taken care of both people and things, the syn-
tonic quality of integrity will predominate. Integrity means a feeling of wholeness
and coherence, an ability to hold together one’s sense of “I-ness” despite diminish-
ing physical and intellectual powers.
Beyond Biography Who was Erik Erikson? For information
on Erikson’s lifelong search for his own identity, please go to our
website atwww.mhhe.com/feist7
Ego integrity is sometimes difficult to maintain when people see that they are
losing familiar aspects of their existence: for example, spouse, friends, physical
health, body strength, mental alertness, independence, and social usefulness. Under
such pressure, people often feel a pervading sense of despair, which they may ex-
press as disgust, depression, contempt for others, or any other attitude that reveals a
nonacceptance of the finite boundaries of life.
Despair literally means to be without hope. A reexamination of Figure 9.2 re-
veals that despair, the last dystonic quality of the life cycle, is in the opposite corner
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262 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
Erikson’s stages of development extend into old age.