Psychology of human development (Pls refer to instructions for Essay

Psychology of human development (Pls refer to instructions for details) - Essay Example As a psychological theory to explain human development, it is certainly an improvement over Freud’s narrow thinking and provides very useful insight into the nature of human psychological problems. Erikson’s eight stages of human development patterns is a useful model to understand human development in general, and offers a remarkable and valuable insight for personal conflict resolution in particular. In the Eight Stages of Man (Erikson, 1950), Erik Erikson produced a comprehensive developmental psychology theory of human personality development covering the entire human lifespan. It was an advancement of his teacher Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, wherein Erikson also took into account the social environment besides the biological factors. The significant characteristic of Erikson’s theory is that to successfully progress from one stage to another necessitates resolution of a particular psychosocial crisis peculiar to that stage. The conflict or crises that must be resolved at each stage are the ‘decisive changes’ that must be made in order to avoid experiencing the inner conflicts. â€Å"The individual is provided with a ‘sensitive period’ in which to successfully resolve each crisis before a new crisis is presented. The results of the resolution, whether successful or not, are carried forward to the next crisis and provide the foundation for its resolution.† (Huitt, W, 2008) As opposed to ‘accidental’ or ‘unexpected’ changes that may occur at any time such as bereavement, these are developmental changes related to circumstances that are ordinarily expected to occur during the stages of life based on the experience of human psychological development. In Erikson’s theory, each of the developmental stages is associated with such development changes with respect to the conflicts or crises that must be resolved. And, these he identified as follows: Here, the child is â€Å"beginning to think of itself