What Is Erikson Stages In Late Adulthood

Frank Beckman, he is the father of Gil, Larry, Helen and Susan. His life gets tested across the three stages of adulthood based on the Erik Erikson psychological theory of life stages. He starts off at the sixth stage, Intimacy versus isolation. In this stage of life-span development people face the task of forming intimate relationships. If they form healthy intimate relationship with the partner, the intimacy will be achieved; if not, isolation will occur, (Santrock, 2016, p. 19). Intimacy gets illustrated as at this time as it is when he meets Marilyn, (Parenthood, 1989). He settles down with her and starts a family that leads to his four children. He enjoys the intimacy at the time as love takes a big part of his time. Isolation, on the other hand, comes out as he spends a lot of time at work and because of him not being able to connect emotionally with his kids due to scars from his own
In the movie Parenthood (1989), It is at this stage that he has a conversation with his son Gil. who becomes emotional as he realizes he was judging Frank unknowingly and might not be any better than him as he is slowly losing his grip on the family. He knows that he is trying to be there for the kids, but they end up being different from what he expects them to be. The conversation leads to Frank exploiting the ego integrity aspect and tells Gill that caring for the sun will never end, (Parenthood, 1989). He reconciles with his son in regards to the bitterness that he had. The element of despair is not left out, as his son Larry is in a problem that he needs bailing out. He does not lose hope but instead tries to help him develop into a better person by trying to teach him what he did not do. He seems to be amending the past mistakes that he had noted he had done and finally gives up hope and allows Larry to lead the life that he wants to