Sigmund Freud’s Influence on Erik Erikson’s Life and Theories

Erik Ericson was a psychologist who was heavily influenced by another doctor named Sigmund Freud. While Freud spoke from a psychosexual perspective, Erikson was a little different and spoke about the psychosocial stages. He speaks the super ego and id of a human, certain crisis and rewards that a person will go through in their lifetime, and personality growth and development in a predetermined order. In the eight stages of the psychosocial stages, Erikson explains the social and psychological needs of an individual.

Sigmund Freud was an inspirational man during the 1900’s. He introduced multiple words to people that were used then and are still used today such as anal, repression, denial, libido, and many more. Freud was known as the founding father of psychoanalysis, methods for the treating people who are mentally ill. Freud’s theory on psychosexual was based on people’s, mainly women, desires and sexual experiences. He also figured out certain patterns in these women by understanding their sexual history and partners.

Both of their theories were the similar did had some differences. With the eight stages of psychological stages and Freud’s theories, the difference is that Freud focused on sexual development while Erickson focused on adolescent socialization and growth. Another difference was that Erikson used a person’s lifespan while Freud used only a certain time of a person sexual lifestyle. Unlike Freud, Erikson wasn’t very descriptive within how the psychological stages lead to one another or how beneficial It would be to the next stage in life. Even though Erikson does not lead his stages into others, he does mention that his work his to meant as a tool but not factual statements.