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Life Cycle and Development
Affects at Midlife

Stage: II

Age: 2-3: Toddler
Significant Relations: Parents
Psychosocial Crises: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Autonomy: Self-directing freedom and especially moral independence.

Shame: A painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, perceived shortcomings, or impropriety resulting in a condition of humiliating disgrace, disrepute or dishonor. Shame is a violation of external cultural or social values.

Doubt: to lack confidence in, distrust, to consider unlikely.

Having been at the mercy of the world and his parents in infancy, a toddler struggles to gain control and learns that the will is the way. This is the stage of identity separation from the mother or primary caretaker. Up until this time an infant understood his mother as an extension of his Self. Is an infant aware of life--that he is alive? Self-awareness is recognition of one's Self as a separate being from others; this begins around age 2. Failure to fully separate one's identity from the parent is a failure of autonomy. Where Stage 1 was about dependence, Stage 2 is about becoming independent.

If the trust-mistrust dynamic is imbalanced toward too much trust, it may take longer for realization of a separate of identities; too much mistrust may facilitate premature and thus crushing recognition that the mother is a separate person. A healthy trust-mistrust balance leads naturally and gradually to this realization as the trusted and extended identity fails to be 100% consistent. Initially the child interprets this as a personal failure since he understands the mother as a part of his Self. But this dissonance becomes more pronounced as the trusted extension continues to occasionally fail to meet the needs and desires of the personal body. This realization enables and encourages the development of autonomy.

No and mine are the mantra of a child asserting his separate identity--independence. Mine reveals an acknowledgement of separation since possessiveness is not necessary if you and I are the same person. No is a realization and insistence of choice.

Overprotection or S-Mothering--too much caution--hinders the development of autonomy. Unnecessary or too much criticism may have the same result in that it breeds self-doubt. Healthy trust enables autonomy; a child trusts his parents will not abandon him even as he rebels and seeks independence.

If a child does not learn autonomy through gradual and loving parental guidance, he will learn to possess through power as he rebels against his restrictions in a stubborn bid for control. Such circumstances are a breeding ground for an adult who is rigid and rule-bound. Shame is about public exposure and a comparison (or recognition) of powerlessness over Self to the power of others. Guilt is a private sense of internal self-hatred. Over shaming leads to clandestine behaviour when it crosses a person's threshold and other people's disdain seems overblown and thus meaningless.

Healthy shame shows us our human boundaries and builds humility; it is our defense against hubris. But there is a shame that is detrimental; toxic shame is about identity, to believe flaws are personal character defects rather than an indication of mistakes. Toxic shame is a personal humiliation that leads a person to hide their sinful selves either by masquerading as false identity or through secrecy and deception.


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