Erickson's Eight Psychosocial Stages

When I want to make sense of my past, present, and future, I consider my life in terms of Erickson’s eight psychosocial stages (as cited in Kail & Cavanaugh, 2014, p. 10). These stages bring a sense of clarity and order to my journey, making it more understandable to my psychology-oriented mind. My white, middle-class, relatively carefree childhood provided the framework for me to work out my first few life tasks unobstructed. My caregivers met my basic needs for food and affection, and I learned to trust the world. Prodigious playing and independent learning, as well as kindergarten attendance and family trips (for example, when I was six, we attended the 1964 New York World’s Fair), encouraged my early childhood development.
As a young child,
I began working to address my depression, heal my childhood abuse wounds, and change my pattern of behavior in relationships by finding my voice and my ability to stand up for myself. As a result of this work, I began speaking up with men, which was a major step toward creating healthy relationships with others and with myself. I dated a number of men during this time, and each one wanted me to be exactly what I did not want to be—silent and compliant. I felt elated to know that I could speak my mind and suffer rejection, and that the world did not collapse around me as a result. I started to feel compassion for myself when I realized that my pattern of behavior was not just my interpersonal incompetence, but was actually a behavior fostered and conditioned in me by people who wanted to exploit my low self-esteem and use me for their own selfish gratification. Eventually, changing my conditioned patterns and speaking authentically, led me to a relationship in which I received appreciation and love for who I was, and not just who I pretended to be. The thought that I could be loved just for myself was an amazing revelation to
In young adulthood you learn whom you care to be with—at work and in private life, not only exchanging intimacies, but sharing intimacy. In adulthood, however, you learn to know what and whom you can take care of. As a principle it corresponds to what in Hinduism is called the maintenance of the world, that middle period of the life cycle when existence permits you and demands you to consider death as peripheral and to balance its certainty with the only happiness that is lasting: to increase, by whatever is yours to give, the good will and the higher order in your sector of the world. That, to me, can be the only adult meaning of that strange word happiness as a political principle (p.