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Erik Erikson was a psychoanalyst who is well known for his theory that asserted that every stage of your life correlates with specific inner conflicts that affect your personality and psychological growth. He was an extremely influential psychoanalyst with a substantial career.  His career began with receiving a certificate from the Maria Montessori School, followed with training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, then later joined the department of psychiatry at Yale University. Erikson is also known for coining the phase identity crisis, which he studied through his work. Erikson also focused a lot on the education of children and he believed that their education should be based on self-knowledge.

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Stage 1: Basic Trust vs Mistrust: 0-2 years.

Infancy, the first 18 months, is important to an individual's psychological development. Through

love, and nurturing the individual gains confidence. If it is unreliable, the conclusion may be fear and mistrust A balance of both allows the individual a since if being open, but aware of the potential of danger. The mother or primary caregiver is key to this stage of development.

Stage 2: Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt: 2-3 years.

Discovering the body and gaining independence is important during this stage. Children should be encouraged to explore, stretch limits, discover things. If over criticized or controlled,

this can lead to self-doubt and shame. A good balance will lead to autonomy and adequacy. Both parents are key in this stage.

Stage 3: Initiative vs Guilt: 4-5 years.

During preschool, we learn to assert ourselves. We explore interpersonal skills and push our will upon others. If we are made to feel bad about our interest through increased criticism, a

the side of guilt can develop. If questions are discouraged one can feel like a nuisance and limit their interactions with others. Entire Family plays a role in this stage.

Stage 4: Industry vs inferiority: 5-12 years

During this stage, one discovers their own interest and realizes that we are different from others.

If positive feedback/ recognition is received from peer groups and in social interactions, the individuals will become motivated/ hardworking, competence with increased self-esteem. overly criticized, one can lose motivation and feel inferior. Winning approval is the motivating

factor in this stage, but learning to fail is also crucial. Schools, teachers, and neighbors are important at this stage.

Stage 5: Identity vs Role Confusion: Adolescence

This stage is critical to our sense of who we are and critical for adult years. During this time, we explore beliefs, goals, and values during our search for personal identity. We learn that

we have different social roles and have an identity crisis. If parents give the appropriate support and

encourage exploration one can increase independence and find a stronger side of identity. One is made to conform to their parents views, they can feel lost and misunderstood. Peers and role models are key.

Stage 6: Intimacy vs Isolation: Young Adult

Motivation to explore personal relationships and a desire to form intimate long term commitments outside of our family become important. Young adults let go of relationships we

build to fit in and ask ourselves if we can love. If we are able to make a long term commitment or develop relationships we might feel lonely or depressed. If the individual has a poor since of

self, isolation builds. Trends and partners are central in this stage

Stage 7: Generativity vs Stagnation: 40- 65 years

Need for longevity arises. It becomes important to make a mark on society. It could be though something physical or through our children. Success and being productive become valuable. What has been achieved, our children, and relationships are our markers of success.

If it is felt that little impact has been made, it can be looked at as a failure.

Stage 8: Integrity vs Despair: 65 years to Death

This is the stage of reflection and reviewing the accomplishments of our lives. Success in this

stage is achievement of goals and happiness. This leads to wholeness and peace. Failure is experienced despair and regret of a life unfulfilled. Bitter and frightened to leave a life without fulfillment.

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Erikson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development Explained

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The Foundational Beliefs and Critiques of this Theory

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The Foundational Beliefs and Critiques of this Theory

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A central theme with all of the stages is that each one is distinguished by a crisis, “if the crisis is successfully met, it produces a virtue that can benefit the person from that point forward” (Pomerantz, 2023, P. 317).

There have been critiques of Erikson’s theory, mainly because it focuses “so heavily on stages and assuming that the completion of one stage is prerequisite for the next crisis of development” (Baird, 2019).

The successful completion of each stage allows the individual to gain the skills and abilities to adequately function in the current stage of life and the tools to handle the next stage.  Failure in any of these stages, will leave the individual ill equipped to handle the next phase with the appropriate tools.

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The film Eighth Grade is set in the last week of coed public middle school for a girl in the 2000's. She is being raised by a single parent father in what seems to be a suburban working/ middle class neighborhood. The film does not explicitly say where the mother is or when or why she left the family, but her exit has had a dramatic impact on the family dynamic. Not having a mother seems to have given Kayla the habit of seeking validation from peers.  She also has pulled away from her father.  Because she is basing what a “good daughter” is on what she finds attractive in others, she hides herself from her father.  This creates emotional distance between them.  We can assume that she had problems in Stages 1- 3 because she feels unsafe being herself and feels inadequate in all of her relationships including the one with her parent.  She also has a hard time asserting herself in her real life and uses her online presence to pretend to be the person that she wishes she was.  This leads to her further self despise.  The story is centered around the main character Kayla, her father, and other students in her middle school.

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The film is about the coming of age experience and it focuses heavily on identity, as Kayla is actively trying to find her true identity throughout the story. The movie also focuses on anxiety, relationships, friendships, confidence, and many other things. The major conflict of the movie is Kayla struggling to feel validated by her peer group and having confidence in herself. Kayla is struggling with Stage 5 of Erikson's theory because she has had such a difficult time in the previous stages.

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During the film, she is currently experiencing Stage 5, but has also experienced some aspects of Stage 6, mainly towards the end of the movie. In Stage 5, Erikson discusses that as identity vs. role confusion, and “the aim during those years is to develop an answer to a fundamental question: who am I” (Pomerantz, 2023, P. 318)? That is a question that Kayla is constantly struggling with during the movie. I think that Erikson believes that Kayla has unevolved stages because of her mother walking out on her.   This caused her to constantly feel unsafe in the world.  Kayla alienated herself from others, and because she wasn’t able to cleanly move through the earlier stages.  She was unable to move successfully through her current stage, until her conversation with her father, which allowed her to resolve some earlier issues, and allowed herself to see herself in a different way.  She was pretending with everyone in her life, she was mimicking the people who she thought were popular.

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Erikson's Stages Applied to Kayla's Life Part. 1

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Erikson's Stages Applied to Kayla's Life Part. 1

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Kayla, the protagonist is living two lives: one at school that is introverted with not a lot of

friends, and the other is able to speak freely about things that concern her behind her computer on her channel. The focus of her online channel is her experiences or lack thereof at school, but from a made up perspective.

Stage 4: By doing this, she gains the positive interactions that she craves, but that she doesn't receive from her interactions at school, and she feels inferior at school due to her lack of acceptance and her perceived social status.

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Erikson's Stages Applied to Kayla's Life Part. 2

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Erikson's Stages Applied to Kayla's Life Part. 2

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Stage 5: She is able to control this on her channel and is able to feel connected to her subscribers. This gives her a false sense of community. Her focus is on being yourself on her show, but she seems to be creating her identity from what other people believe. She constantly attempts to affirm herself since she is not receiving outside affirmations. From her morning alarm to the positive notes to herself on her items. She's pretending to be someone else online to give advice to people who have some of the same social issues that she is experiencing. She is aware how to be the person that she strives to be and as the movie progresses she begins to take her advice and branch out and take risks to reach her personal social goals. Although her channel’s focus is "Being Yourself". Most of her online advice is mimicking the actions of a girl that she perceived to be popular. She exhibits a great deal of anger towards her father in her efforts to gain her independence. He's overprotective and which could be the cause of her lack of self confidence. She doesn't allow him to be close to her because she is ashamed of herself and believes him to be embarrassed of her. He does not have the tools to reach her so he does things that she deems offensive or overbearing. She is finding it difficult to create her sense of identity. She is also having a hard time establishing boundaries with him. The resolution of the movie is when Kayla and her father had a conversation about how he truly feels about her and how he was proud to be her father. When she realized that her dad was proud of her, that allowed her to let down that wall, and she was no longer ashamed of herself. After that conversation, she truly realized that she should be her authentic self all the time, because if her father loved her unconditionally, she should love herself unconditionally.

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Eighth Grade (2018) - Do I Make You Sad? Scene | Movieclips

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Erikson's Stages Applied to Kayla's Life Part. 3

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Erikson's Stages Applied to Kayla's Life Part. 3

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Stage 6: After her extremely positive shadowing experience because of the student that she was paired with in high school, she realizes that she has an opportunity to reinvent herself in high school. Developing a relationship with a peer for the first time helps her start to gain self confidence.

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Eighth Grade (2018) - Can't Wait To Grow Up Scene | Movieclips

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I believe that the theory did well in explaining Kayla’s development, especially during Stage 5 when she is figuring out her identity. The theory was capable of explaining all of Kayla’s experiences, I would say that she experienced aspects of Stage 6, even though she was not a Young Adult during the movie. I believe that you can experience some aspects of the older stages, when you are a younger age. I think that overall Kayla’s life timeline matched the stages of development well.  The theory was a good fit when making a psycho-developmental assessment of Kayla. Erikson’s Theory of Development is the best theory to analyze Kayla with, because it explains many of her current issues based on her inability to successfully complete the previous.    I think that it is mostly valid to use this theories when talking about Kayla because many of these theories were based on White Anglo-Saxon experiences. The theories would probably apply to her based on that, compared to if she was a Black queer person. However, we can also argue that her being a female and her in a traditional family,  due to her mother leaving her at such a young age, she might not be considered typical.

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Pomerantz, A. M. (2023). Chapter 7 Psychology. In My Psychology (3rd ed., pp. 317–318). essay, Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning.

Erik H. Erikson- Erikson Institute’s Namesake. Erikson Institute. (2022, June 17). Retrieved October 25, 2023 from https://www.erikson.edu/about/history/erik-erikson/

O’Neil, A., & Baird, A. (2019, September 9). Psychosocial theory. Always Developing. Retrieved October 25, 2023 from https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/alwaysdeveloping/chapter/psychosocial-theory/