Midlife Cisis & Life Cycle

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Life Cycle and Development
Affects at Midlife

A Review of the Work of Erik H. Erikson

Introduction

The purpose of this review is to understand the stages and series of developmental accomplishments a person needs to have achieved for a smooth midlife transition. An imbalance in any stage indicates different issues and tasks for the midlife transition and may result in different behaviours. By understanding these stages a person may understand the reason for a specific person in midlife crisis' behaviours.

"Where generative enrichment in its various forms fails altogether, regressions to earlier stages may occur either in the form of an obsessive need for pseudo-intimacy or of a compulsive kind of preoccupation with self imagery—and both with a pervading sense of stagnation." (Erikson, Erik H. The Life Cycle Completed. New York: W W Norton & Company. 1982 page 67.)

Erik Erikson divided human development into 8 stages from infancy to death. The stages are epigenetic, which is a step-by-step growth wherein development of stages is sequential and dependent on preceding stages. Erikson borrowed the term epigenetic from embryology where it referred to fetal development.

For understanding, consider building blocks in construction; each block rests upon the one beneath it and further growth is impossible if a block is missing. Within each stage there is a developmental task or conflict which must be resolved to progress to the next stage. Failure of a task causes regression to earlier stages. In this circumstance, regression is a return to the fundamental precursors that lead to growth. A person with Stage 2 gaps may regress to Stage 1 to ensure acquirement of the necessary prerequisite skills.

But this begs the question as to how does a person who does not resolve the tasks progress, how did a 40-year old successful man who had problems in an earlier stage pass through successive stages? Development in any stages may be stunted or imperfect, compromising the metaphorical building block. Consider a block that is hollow, made of inferior material or full of holes like swiss cheese; also consider that material strength varies with context and environment. A westerner may develop successfully for the Western world, and yet may falter or fail if transported to a foreign culture. Thus development continues, but may falter at times when encountering swiss cheese gaps and other inferiorities or changes. At such times a person may fill in the gaps by regressing to previous stages and resolving incomplete tasks.

Resolution of each task is a turning point or revolution. Erikson refers to this as a crisis, and thus his use of the word implies everyone experiences a crisis as a part of every stage of development. I do not use the word crisis in this context, instead reserving it for threats to development such as becoming stuck within a revolving door. Turning points need not be a threat, but can be a welcome change—transition, though revolutionary. Crisis is often the result of fear and subsequent avoidance of transition. But it is also important to understand that the completion of the primary task at each stage does not cease development of that task; cycling behaviours are indicative of the process of experimentation and learning that transits developmental stages. A person advances progressively through the proceeding stages in fits and starts.

Since survival skills and successful resolution vary and are contextual, a person's later crisis may be the result of contextual or cultural changes. Development may have been successful for the original culture and environment of childhood, but such an upbringing may not have included necessary survival skills for a foreign culture—this may be something as simple as urban vs. rural, East vs. West, poor vs. rich.

There are many developmental gaps that may facilitate the same dysfunctions, thus the presence of a specific dysfunctional behaviour may not be reduced to a single cause or developmental gap. Example: A deficiency in affection and nurturing in Stage 1 may facilitate dissociation which itself may enable projection, a common MLCer behaviour. But projection may have many root causes and though it points to a possible gap, it is not conclusive proof of developmental gaps in Stage 1.

Stage	Age	Psychosocial Crises	Psychosocial Virtues	Related Elements of Social Order	Significant Relations	Psychosocial Modalities	Maladaptations & Malignancies
I	0-2 Infancy	Trust vs. Mistrust	Hope	Cosmic Order	Mother	to get, to give in return	sensory distortion. withdrawal
II	2-3 Toddler	Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt	Will	Law and Order	Parents	to hold on, to let go	Impulsivity, compulsion
III	3-5 Preschool	Initiative vs. Guilt	Purpose	Ideal Prototypes	Family	to go after, to play	Ruthlessness, inhibition
IV	5-Teens Pre-Adolescent	Industry vs. Inferiority	Competence	Division of Labor	Neighborhood and School	to complete, to make things together	narrow virtuosity, inertia
V	Teens-20's Adolescence	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Fidelity	Ideology	Peers and Role Models	to be oneself, to share oneself	Fanaticism, repudiation
VI	20's-40 Young Adulthood	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Love	Patterns of Cooperation and Competition	Partners and Friends	to lose and find oneself in another	Promiscuity, exclusivity
VII	40-60 Middle Adulthood	Generativity vs. Stagnation	Caring	Productive Social Involvement: Parenting, Education	Household and Co-Workers	to make be, to take care of	Overextension, rejectivity
VIII	Old Age	Ego Integrity vs. Despair	Wisdom	Wisdom	Mankind or "my kind"	to be, through having been, to face not being	Presumption, despair

Healthy development requires a balanced resolution of the psychosocial crises within each stage. Though the crises may appear as positive versus negative, there is danger in developing one at the complete neglect of its opposite. The crisis of each stage is the foundation for each succeeding stage, with adjustment functioning like forward steps. Healthy development requires a balance of the polar aspects of the psychosocial crises. Poor development and adjustment in one stage can have a negative effect on developmental progress on successive stages.

							Ego Integrity vs. Despair
						Generativity vs. Stagnation
					Intimacy vs. Isolation
				Identity vs. Role Confusion
			Industry vs. Inferiority
		Initiative vs. Guilt
	Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Trust vs. Mistrust
I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII

Stage I – Stage II
Trust is the foundation for autonomy. For a person to desire independence and seek it out he needs to trust in his own abilities as well as trust that his caregivers will continue to provide even while he seeks to separate from them. Trust is not merely mental, it is also a function of muscular development resulting in the ability to crawl, stand, walk, run, jump, hold a glass and eating utensils…
Mistrust is the foundation of shame and doubt; as a child develops his ability to trust and mistrust appropriately, he prepares for acceptance of failures, leading to a desire for autonomy. An imbalance of mistrust may lead to self-doubt in the abilities of others or one's Self which may create a self loathing as a person internalizes the doubt.

Stage II – Stage III
Autonomy is the foundation for initiative. Learning that one is separate from the mother leads to a desire for personal care and action: Let me do it. There is no me or I prior to identity separation and thus initiative has no meaning; recognition of I leads to exploration.
Shame and doubt are the foundation for guilt; shame is a precursor to guilt, first teaching exposure and external judgment which leads to internal feelings of guilt. Shame permeates the being, whereas guilt is behavioural: Everyone hates me therefore I'm bad as opposed to I did something bad.

Stage III – Stage IV
Initiative is the foundation for industry. Initiating actions toward sequential processes leads to planning steps, making goals and completion of projects which yields confidence in competence.
Guilt is the foundation of inferiority: I do bad things; therefore I'm less of a person. As a person feels about their behaviour, they transfer their interpretation of their behaviours to skills and roles; if they behave badly as friends or sons or bothers, they will also be incompetent in the skill-based problem solving necessary for future success as an adult.

Stage IV – Stage V
Industry is the foundation for identity.
Inferiority is the foundation of role confusion: If I'm inferior I have no purpose because there is always someone better. It creates an attitude of senselessness in life.

Stage V – Stage VI
Identity is the foundation for intimacy.
Role confusion is the foundation of isolation. If a person doesn't know who he is, he cannot build intimacy with others. Intimacy is about external relationships, these are impossible without an internal relationship with Self.

Stage VI – Stage VII
Intimacy is the foundation for generativity.
Isolation is the foundation for stagnation. Without community and a safety in socialization a person stunts his growth through his limited access to external influences.

Stage VII – Stage VIII
Generativity is the foundation for ego integrity.
Isolation is the foundation for despair. Despair is a feeling of internal emptiness and external loneliness coupled with hopelessness. The person at this stage reviews his life and realizes he no longer has time to return to his unfinished tasks. At all other stages he still had a future to look toward; now, not only can he no longer put-off his unfinished business, he may not have the time left to complete it.

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Life Cycle and DevelopmentAffects at Midlife

Life Cycle and Development
Affects at Midlife