Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Erikson: Post−Freudian
Theory
© The McGraw−Hill^269
Companies, 2009from hope, a person’s first basic strength. From infancy to old age, hope can exist.
Once hope is lost, despair follows and life ceases to have meaning.
Wisdom: The Basic Strength of Old Age
Some amount of despair is natural and necessary for psychological maturity. The in-
evitable struggle between integrity and despair produces wisdom,the basic strength
of old age. Erikson (1982) defined wisdom as “informed and detached concern with
life itself in the face of death itself ” (p. 61). People with detached concern do not
lack concern; rather, they exhibit an active but dispassionate interest. With mature
wisdom, they maintain their integrity in spite of declining physical and mental abil-
ities. Wisdom draws from and contributes to the traditional knowledge passed from
generation to generation. In old age, people are concerned with ultimate issues, in-
cluding nonexistence (Erikson, Erikson, & Kivnick, 1986).
The antithesis of wisdom and the core pathology of old age is disdain,which
Erikson (1982, p. 61) defined as “a reaction to feeling (and seeing others) in an in-
creasing state of being finished, confused, helpless.” Disdain is a continuation of re-
jectivity, the core pathology of adulthood.
As Erikson himself aged, he became less optimistic about old age, and he and
his wife began to describe a ninth stage—a period of very old age when physical and
mental infirmities rob people of their generative abilities and reduce them to waiting
for death. Joan, especially, was interested in this ninth stage as she watched her hus-
band’s health rapidly deteriorate during the last few years of his life. Unfortunately,
Joan herself died before she could complete this ninth stage.
Summary of the Life Cycle
Erikson’s cycle of life is summarized in Table 9.1. Each of the eight stages is char-
acterized by a psychosexual mode as well as a psychosocial crisis. The psychosocial
crisis is stimulated by a conflict between the predominating syntonic element and its
antithetical dystonic element. From this conflict emerges a basic strength, or ego
quality. Each basic strength has an underlying antipathy that becomes the core
pathology of that stage. Humans have an ever-increasing radius of significant rela-
tions, beginning with the maternal person in infancy and ending with an identifica-
tion with all humanity during old age.
Personality always develops during a particular historical period and within a
given society. Nevertheless, Erikson believed that the eight developmental stages
transcend chronology and geography and are appropriate to nearly all cultures, past
and present.
Erikson’s Methods of Investigation
Erikson insisted that personality is a product of history, culture, and biology; and his
diverse methods of investigation reflect this belief. He employed anthropological,
historical, sociological, and clinical methods to learn about children, adolescents,
mature adults, and elderly people. He studied middle-class Americans, European
children, people of the Sioux and Yurok nations of North America, and even sailors
Chapter 9 Erikson: Post-Freudian Theory 263