In Erik Erikson's theory, he explains that at each stage, a positive or negative attitude develops in an individual. During our stages of development, we either succeed or we fail. Each step will come to us whether we are ready or not. You can think of the stages as stages of learning during which a crisis occurs. If we learn from our previous crisis, we will succeed. You cannot avoid a step and move on to the next step because of the development process. The outcome of our life depends on how we choose to progress through each stage of life. Erikson had his own way of describing each stage of life that we all have to go through. Erickson's Psychological Stages of Development Erik Erikson's Eight Stages of Man are also known as the Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development. It promotes social interactions as motivation for personality development. Erickson studied the stages from the beginning of the life cycle to the final stages of life. Erickson trained under the famous Sigmund Freud. His belief was that gender was not the only motivator for personality development. Social interaction and a growing sense of competence are key to all of this. As his beliefs differed from those of Freud, Erikson soon began working on his own. Erickson focused on many different eras of psychological development. Self identity is said to be one of the many things Erickson focused on. He believed that through social interaction we gain conscious awareness of ourselves, what can commonly be called Ego identity. Although Freud referred to the ego as the clash of the necessities of identity and the superego, Erickson saw the ego as our way of gaining our self-esteem. The way Erickson describes the ego is how we communicate... middle of paper ... we the stages, so now they should be met in this stage. In late adulthood, we are faced with wholeness and despair. We are forced to reflect on our lives and whether or not we have served a purpose in society. If we feel a sense of regret, we become bitter because life did not go as planned. This stage of life should be considered a roller coaster. In conclusion, Erickson taught us that we all go through 8 different psychosocial stages at some point in life. Each step must be taken in order to have acquired knowledge and be able to succeed in the next stage of development. My research on this topic has taught me that we cannot ignore skills and expect to be successful or live happily ever after. I now realize how important it can be to learn from my mistakes. Childhood becomes the remembered past and adulthood the anticipated future (McAdams, 2001).