Freud provided supporting evidence for his theories through the use of case studies. He illustrated the concept of castration anxiety using the case study of little Hans – explaining Hans’ fear of horses and being bitten being by one as a displaced fear of castration by his father. However, you cannot generalise the results of one case study to all children. The accuracy of Freud’s assessment is also questionable. He was selective in the information that he used; for example, he omitted to include the fact that Hans’ mother had threatened Hans’ with castration. In fact, Freud did not work directly with Hans’ but corresponded with his father. Clearly his techniques were not objective and were open to bias, which is a limitation of Freud’s methodology.
Furthermore, although Freud’s theories have vast explanatory power, they are unscientific. For example, the unconscious mind is not directly observable and therefore can’t be objectively measured. This means that Freud’s theories are unfalsifiable. This contrasts with the behaviourist approach, which is based on objective observable behaviour and theories which are testable and enable predictions to be made bout behaviour.
Erikson is another psychodynamic theorist who agreed with Freud over the structure of the personality in terms of id, ego and superego, and the existence of strong instinctual forces. Both also saw development as occurring in stages however Erikson proposed that our interactions with others are the most important influence on our development. One of the main elements of Erikson’s psychological stage theory is the development of the ego identity. This is the sense of self that we develop through social interaction.
Each stage in Erikson’s theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery (ego strength). If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a sense of inadequacy. For example, in the first stage we can either emerge with a sense of trust or mistrust depending on whether we were provided with consistent care and affection from our caregiver.
One big difference between Freud and Erikson is that while they both have stage theories, Freud sees development being completed by around the fifth year, whereas Erikson argued that development takes place over the entire lifetime. To Erikson psychological development takes place in eight stages, with the first occurring in the first year of life and the last in old age. Like Freud, Erikson sees each stage of life as marked by a crisis, or struggle, which the individual must confront and try to resolve.
In Freud’s theory, the stages the stages are named after the area of the body in which the sexual energy is concentrated. In Erikson’s the stages are named after the opposite extremes of the crisis; for example, during the fifth stage the crisis is ‘identity vs role confusion’ indicating the individual’s need to develop a sense of identity. Also, where Freud thought that a person becomes fixated if they don’t successfully overcome the crisis, Erikson says that successful resolution provides the ego with a basic strength. Failure to resolve the crisis means that the ego lacks the strength associated with any one stage.
One important difference between Erikson and Freud is that Erikson focuses on relationships with people (psychosocial stages) whilst Freud’s main concern is with unconscious effects of the sex instinct (psychosexual stages). Thus, where Freud described biological psychosexual stages of development, Erikson emphasised the social forces that influence development. This makes Erikson’s theory a much more positive and optimistic view of the human condition than Freud’s view of humans being locked in perpetual conflict.
Finally, Erikson’s claim that the eight psychosexual stages of development are applicable universally to people in different societies is open to some doubt. The validity of the crisis described at each stage, and the agreement about what constitutes a desirable outcome, may depend heavily upon the norms and values of a particular culture (Booth, 1975). For example, stage 4 ‘industry vs inferiority ‘, may apply only in cultures like ours, that emphasise competition and that frown upon children who don’t succeed on particular skills at a given time.
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