Comparing Erikson’s Ego-Psychology to Physical Human Growth Patterns

The question of how the human mind grows and develops is one that scholars have attempted to answer through the ages. It is of particular importance to educators, as success in their jobs hinges on being able to effectively reach and teach their students. As the secrets of the body and brain have become increasingly understood through both technological advancements and research methods, theorists such as Erik Erikson have put forth explanations of the mind’s direction and propensity to learn. Erikson, as discussed by Boeree (2006), was a proponent of Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages. Erikson, though, expanded and refined Freud’s concept by dividing the fifth and final stage – called the “genital stage” by Freud – into four more nuanced progressions: adolescence, followed by young, middle, and late adulthood (Boeree, 2006, p. 7). He is most famous, however, for his development of the epigenetic principle, which states, “we develop through a predetermined unfolding of our personalities in eight stages [… and] like the unfolding of a rose bud, each petal opens up at a certain time, in a certain order, which nature, through its genetics, has determined” (Boeree, 2006, p. 6). Each stage laid the foundation for each successive stage. Thus if this genetically programmed order was interrupted or interfered with, it risked “ruining the development of the entire flower” (Boeree, 2006, p. 6).
More recent research and study of the mechanics of human physical growth pattern have at least partially validated Erikson’s model. Though the Freudian language of concrete “stages” and “crises” remain outdated, the human body and brain do go through a definite and predictable series of growth and development phases that correspond remarkably well to Erikson’s eight stages. The human growth charts published by The National Center for Health Statistics (2000), for instance, show a marked difference in growth rate between an infant and a toddler: after the first 6 months of life, both brain and body begin to slow their growth before stabilizing in the second year (NCHS, 2000, p. 1-4). This marks roughly the break point between the Eriksonian/Freudian stages I and II: from infant to toddler (Boeree, 2006, p. 7). Similarly, there is a clear delineation in growth between a prepubescent child and an adolescent, and again between an adolescent and a young adult (NCHS, 2000, p. 5, 6).
While there are no such easily recognizable physical shifts between a child in the anal-muscular stage, and one in the genital-locomotor stage, there is a distinct shift in both physical and mental ability. Very rapidly, both gross and fine motor skill are achieved and mastered and “the preschool child no longer has to make an effort to stay upright and move around” (Santrock and Yussen, 1992, p. 169). The skill set of a given 3-4 year old – running, jumping, throwing, as well as complex speech patterns - is so vastly beyond a 2 year old that it is easy to see where delineation between stages could be drawn, even in the absence of clearly demarcated physical differences (Santrock and Yussen, 1992, p. 169).
Of course, at no point in human development is there a true dormancy. Instead, even the clearest of changes are merely shifts in rate and type of growth over a given period of time. Even a stage theory as relatively well developed as Erikson’s suffers from the same limitations of language and rigidity of explanation. Boeree (2006) says:

If we stretch the meaning of stages to include certain logical sequences, i.e. things that happen in a certain order, not because they are biologically so programmed, but because they don't make sense any other way
[…]
And if we stretch the meaning of stages even further to include social "programming" as well as biological […] it is no longer a difficult matter to come up with seven or eight stages; Only now, of course, you'd be hard pressed to call them stages, rather than "phases" or something equally vague. (p. 15)

It is very hard to definitively attribute the name “stage” to even such an obvious transition as adolescence. Onset of pubescent features can vary widely even within an individual, much less the population as a whole. The rapid growth typical of teens can start as early as 9 in girls and 10 in boys, or a late as 15 in girls, and 17 in boys (Santrock and Yussen, 1992, p. 169). Similarly, menarche, genital development, and pubescent hair growth have wide variation in their start and end points (Santrock and Yussen, 1992, p. 169). Rather than being a single definite stage, physical adolescence is a confluence of interconnected, but separate processes. It can be posited that mental development would follow a similarly unsynchronized pattern toward full development.
Though Erikson’s theories do not entirely align with the patterns seen in human growth, they do so on enough key points that they can provide a structure which “meets one of the most important standards of personality theory, a standard sometimes more important than "truth:" It is useful” (Boeree, 2006, p. 15). By taking Erikson’s theory of genetic determinacy together with the more gradated and continuous theory of Maria Montessori’s “absorbent mind” (Carson, 2002, p. 1), it is possible to see a potential pattern of mental development very similar to the corresponding physical development – a continuous upward and outward growth, punctuated by preprogrammed phases of accelerated progress and rapid change.

Resources

Boeree, C. (2006). Personality Theories: Erik Erikson. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/perscontents.html

Carson, R. (2002). The educational wisdom of Maria Montessori. EDCI 552 Coursepack.
Bozeman, MT: Montana State University, Northern Plains Transition to Teaching Program.

National Center for Health Statistics(2000). Human growth charts. Retrieved www.cdc.gov\growthcharts

Santrock, J. W. and Yussen, S. R. (1992). Child development -- An introduction. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown. pp. 165-212.