Psychoanalytic Theories of Freud and Erikson

Freud was one of the very first influential psychologists who changed the way we study humans. Freud's main concern was with sexual desire, defined in terms of formative drives, instincts and appetites that result in the formation of an adult personality.

Erikson recognized Freud’s contributions, and although he felt Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human development, he was still influenced by Freud, which caused some similarities in their theories.

Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality in psychology. Much like Sigmund Freud, Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages. Unlike Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages, Erikson’s theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan.

The first similarity that can be seen is that each stage in both psychologists’ theories takes place around approximately the same age. First stage takes place from birth to about one year. Second stage is about one year to age three. Third stage is age three until approximately five or six. Fourth stage is from age six until the onset of puberty. And the rest of the stages take place from puberty onward. After puberty is the last of Freud stages while Erikson’s continue on to three more stages.

The next similarity between the two theorists can be seen in the fact that both agree bad experiences in early childhood can create negative effects which can cause unhealthy adulthood and improper progress through the later stages. Freud called this a fixation and says it happens when a child “remains locked in an earlier developmental stage”. A good example of this can occur when the child is one and a half to three years old during the anal stage. While toilet training, if the parents are too strict or punish the child this can have negative effects. Later on in life the child could grow up to be somewhat obsessive compulsive and could literally take on...