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highly influenced by sexual activity in their childhood. According to Terry Eagleton 1996: 133, “Sexuality for Freud is itself a perversion – a swerving away of a
natural self-preservative instinct towards another goal.” This is knowingly called as psychosexual developments, in which there are five stages of sexual activities in
childhood that should be passed by human beings through their development. Freud’s theory becomes the most famous and influential theory for many
professionals who develop new psychological theories based on his basic beliefs about human development. Erik Homberger Erikson 1902-1994 becomes the one
who agrees the basic theory of Freud. Although Erikson agrees Freud’s basic theory of human development, he has a different opinion on some parts. Freud delivers his
theory about psychosexual as the stage of shaping human personality or behavior that only happens in childhood. On the other hand, Erikson believes that human
personality development is influenced by social and historical around the people itself. In addition, Erikson intends to say that the stage of human personality
development is faced in life-cycle; those are the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. This is as stated by Jeisst Freist 2008: 249 that:
Erikson regarded his post-Freudian theory as an extension of psychoanalysis, something Freud might have done in time. Although he used Freudian theory as
the foundation for his life-cycle approach to personality, Erikson differed from Freud in several respects. In addition to elaborating on psychosexual stages
beyond child-hood, Erikson placed more emphasis on both social and historical influences.
One most important thing that differentiates Erikson’s theory of human personality from Freud’s theory is the concept of human ego. Freud places the role of
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ego as a dependent part of human mind, which only has a function to balance the human’s id and human’s superego. It is because the focus in his theory is on human
desire or the Id. On the other hand, Erikson puts the ego as an independent part of the human mind and plays the most important role in every stage of human socio-
emotional development. According to Erikson 1968: 46, “the ego, the individual center of organized experience and reasonable planning, stood endangered by both
the anarchy of the primeval instincts and the lawlessness of the group spirit”. Erikson’s statement convinces that the focus of his theory is about how the ego
organizes the life experience of human being and how the ego and the social experiences work to build the human personality. Then, he expands his theory named
psychosocial theory, which is accepted as Post-Freudian theory or psychosocial development theory with his eight stages of man’s concepts.
B. Erikson’s Psychosocial Development
Psychosocial is a branch of psychology that is concerned with social and historical factors as the elements in forming individuals’ personality. Erikson is the
major figure who concerns on psychosocial development which believes that human being should pass eight stages of human development throughout their life-cycle.
Each stage of the development will determine the people’s personality that might be performed. Erikson believes that human personality is not only influenced by
biological factors but also influenced by social factors. Family is the first element that
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brings up the individuals to develop their personalities in all stages of Erikson’s theory based on the innate factors and social factors.
It is as true to say that babies control and bring up their families as it is to say the converse. A family can bring up a baby only by being brought up by him. His
growth consists of a series of challenges to them to serve his newly developing potentialities for social in-teraction Erikson, 1980: 57.
As said by Erikson above, family is the first place of individuals to be brought up as their first time to try to interact with and learn to know the value of life. On the
other hand, the family also learns new things from the presence of the baby. The baby always makes signs to the environment around, including the family, so it is required
sensitiveness in responding the existence of a baby. The family has a big responsibility to guide the baby to grow up well. The result, whether the baby grows
up well or not, indirectly shows the quality of their family in guiding their baby through interaction and communication. Therefore, in the process of development, the
role of family is the most important factor required in guiding the individuals during their growth in order to prevent the failure that might happen to their personality. It is
because Erikson believes that social interaction is the key in determining the human personality development, and it can be seen at first in the individuals’ relationship
with their family as the background. Then, Erikson also mentions that human growth consists of a series of
challenges, which can be referred to the eight stages of psychosocial development. In addition, it also means that human’s personality is not achieved instantly, but still
requires some steps. The steps are placed in Erikson’s development stages that occur
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1. Epigenesis Principle is an idea developed by Erik Erikson that states that every organism is born with a certain purpose, and continues to develop how it was intended to in interrelation with its environment..
2. Locomotor is a category of motor skills, they are a group of movements in which the feet move to body from one place to another.
3. Sensory is connected with the physical senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing and seeing . 4. Social Capacities is the capacity of social systems to produce services and experiences.
in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Erikson believes that each stage of human development gives significant influences to the later stage. Thus, human development
is occurring throughout the lifespan and influenced by social factor, and the outcome of each stage is not permanent but can be changed by later experience.
Erikson’s stages of personality development also refer to epigenesis principle
1
, which mentions that one component arises out of another. It has its own time of
ascendancy, but it does not change the earlier component. Somewhat generalized, this principle states that anything that grows has a ground
plan, and that out of this ground plan the parts arise, each part having its time of special ascendancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functioning whole
Erikson, 1980: 53.
Each stage of development has its own crisis, and the task of the individual is to find the solution at the last. Erikson 1968: 93 thought that “a mature organism is not
about developing a new organ but dispensing locomotor
2
, sensory
3
, and social capacities
4
that are described in the child development”. It means that Erikson intends to say that human development is not only about the physical changes of
human beings, but also about the development of human’s skills in recognizing and responding the phenomenon around them. For Erikson, psychoanalysis has a big role
to give understanding about how individuals achieve personality which is formed by the experiences of inner conflicts and the manners toward the conflict that showed by
individuals. The experiences of the healthy individuals will lead them to achieve a success in interacting with the environment around them. Meanwhile, there are many
different cultures in the world that causing individuals achieving different
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personalities following to the culture where they belong to be. The proper guidance in each stages or all epigenesis is important to guide them to have the proper
personalities. Therefore, personality will develop based on the steps that are determined to the individuals’ readiness to be aware of and to interact with the larger
institution. According to Jess Freist 2008: 255, each stage of Erikson’s psychosocial
development consists of two opposite interactions: a conflict between a syntonic harmonious element and a dystonic disruptive. This opposition is usually called as
contrary disposition. The word ‘syntonic’ refers to the positive disposition, and the ‘dystonic’ refers to the negative disposition. For example, the very first stage of
psychosocial development, trust positive is opposed to mistrust negative. Erikson uses the word ‘versus’or ‘vs’ in every crisis stage that consists of two opposing
conflicts. The outcome of the contrary disposition is called as basic strength. The basic
strength is produced by the ego quality. Then, the outcome of the basic strength will indicate whether human development is growing healthily or not. When human fails
to reach the balance opposition on each crisis stage or tend to be in one of the dispositions, it will lead them to have mental problems. Erikson calls an extreme
tendency to the ‘syntonic’ as a ‘maladaption’, while the extreme tendency to the ‘dystonic’ is called as ‘malignancy’.
Erikson’s concept of the ego becomes one of the indicators that differentiate his theory from Freud’s theory. Basically, Erikson has the same opinion as Freud’s about
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the concept of the id and the superego, but he has a different way in seeing the ego. Here are the concept of the id, the ego, and the superego from Erikson’s theory:
1. The Id
According to Freud, the id is derived from the unconsciousness of the human mind; it does not have contact with reality. The Id is famously known as the
pleasure principle since its function is to satisfy human desire and pleasure. In addition, people are never aware of what the id wants or what the id says Jess
Freist, 2008: 27. In this case, Erikson accepts Freud’s concept of the id. 2.
The Ego The ego’s concept of Erikson is different from Freud’s. Erikson puts the ego of
human being as the most important thing that plays roles in all stages of psychosocial development. Erikson emphasizes that psychoanalysis today is
implementing the study of the ego, a concept denoting mans capacity to unify his experience and his action in an adaptive manner Erikson, 1950: 13.
Human’s ego is the inner factor that constitutes to the manner and then forms the later personality of the individual. Erikson mentions that the ego is endowed
with some qualities, which emerge from critical periods of development. The qualities are such as trust and hope, autonomy and will, industry and
competence, identity and role confusion, intimacy and love, generativity and care, integrity and wisdom Erikson 1950: 221. Different from Freud, Erikson
believes that the ego is influenced by historical and social factors. However, Erikson still has the same opinion with Freud about the function of the ego; it
