1.Conduct an interview with an older individual and write a four page paper deta
ID: 3471814 • Letter: 1
Question
1.Conduct an interview with an older individual and write a four page paper detailing your experience. Ask them to tell you their life story. Begin the paper by describing who you interviewed, how you met them or know them. Based on your interview, assess their personality in terms of Erikson’s developmental theory. Be sure to explain Erikson’s theory as you describe it. How did they resolve the various stages? Where do you believe they fit now? You should also comment on other aspects of their personality, but be sure to spend at least half the paper on Erikson’s theory.
Explanation / Answer
Erickson’s psychosocial development theory talks about the continual development of individuals throughout the life span. It is a theory that focuses on constant assimilation and communication of individual competencies with resources, difficulties and culture. Essentially it ascends according to an innate plan with each stage building upon the previous stage and focuses on a challenge that must be resolved during that stage in order to move effectively onto the next stage of development. He believed that each part of our personality had a particular time or phase within our life span wherein it is likely to develop, if at all it does. While meeting individuals for a project in an NGO that worked with the elderly group, especially the ones who had been abandoned by their families and the ones residing there by choice, I understood how these people operate within this theory. They were seen reflecting on their previous stages and reminiscing all the good and bad instances of their lives with utmost interest and enthusiasm. Each stage was remembered, reflected upon and pondered upon using different lenses in order to revisit the learnings, successes and failures. The last stage of development per se, within which this group was functioning is essentially the last one (65 and above) which is described as ‘ego integrity v/s despair’. While interviewing them, it was seen how they tend to ponder upon past experiences to make sense of it, regret the mistakes that they consider could have been differently and cherish the ones that are seen as successes or accomplishments. This is exactly the psychosocial motive as described by Erickson in this particular phase of development. The personality goes through the psycho-social crisis of making sense of all their life experiences so far and reflecting upon them deeply. Had the individual seen more failures than successes, they are likely to develop a lens of despair and if they develop an outlook of positive accomplishments being more, they develop an ‘ego integrity’ where they joyfully reminisce the same. The ones who were seen having a ‘mistrust’ towards people or circumstances were the ones who turned out to be having a traumatic childhood, experiences of separation from parental figures amidst other challenges. This is in alignment with the first stage of psycho-social development as described by him. Some participants having self-loath or low self esteem per se, were the ones who probably underwent critical parenting as described by them. Here, the instrumental figures in their lives were either seen to be neglectful, or ruthless towards the achievements or successes towards the toddlers. Giving initial small moments of making little choices and helping children explore is the critical point of this stage and must be fulfilled. The ones that indeed had a difficult adolescence and trust issues during the youth were the ones who could not successfully resolve their identity crisis during that stage. Role confusion was however not catered to leading to such unfulfilled feelings per se.
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