What are the 3 parts of emotional development?

"How does the emotional healing process work?," is a common question I am asked by people entering their transformative journey.  I wrote this piece as a sort of roadmap for the emotional healing and transformation process.  

The 5 Stages of Emotional Development is a conceptual foundation for the growth process my clients experience on their path toward personal freedom, empowerment, and self-realization.  While these phases are not so clearly delineated in an individual's actual healing journey, it is helpful to distinctly identify them to understand the process.

Stage 1: Acute

When most people first find me, they are at some type of breaking point where they just can’t deal with ______________ (fill in the blank) any longer.  This is what I call Stage 1 or the “Acute Stage.”  It depends upon how severe someone’s acute situation is, but usually I can help move someone to a place of greater ease and less stress pretty quickly (usually within the first few treatments).

Often when moving beyond the Acute Stage, people report feeling better than they’ve felt in a long time (or in their entire life).  The danger here, because people can feel such relief, is in quitting the work before addressing the underlying “Stage 2” work that put you in the Acute Stage to begin with.

Stage 2: Clearing

Stage 2 work is clearing the backlog in your emotional closet.  This is the stuff that animates most of the problems in your life.  Moving through this will allow you to start to operate on an entirely new level.  This stage of the healing is the bulk of the “clearing” part of our work and paves the way for the “building” part — which undertake in Stage 3.

The duration of the Stage 2 “Clearing Stage” will depend entirely upon what is available to clear from your system.  You might be surprised at how much you have “taken on” in your system that has nothing to do with who you really are!

Stage 3: Authentic Self

Stage 3 is where things get very exciting.  They way I like to describe this is in reference to a “baseline” of zero.  Everything up until this point was “below the baseline” — clearing negativity from your system.  When we we enter Stage 3, we start getting into fostering the “true you” coming forward into life.  Stage 3 is about birthing the Authentic Self.

I never cease to be awe struck as I enter Stage 3 of the healing with a client.  Despite how many different people there are on this planet, every single one, when expressing his or her authentic self, is completely unique.  To see that unique light begin to shine through more and more is truly stunning and the wonder that drives my passion for this important work.

Stage 4: Refining Your Gifts

In Stage 4, you take the “new you” that we have been birthing and start to figure out how it works — like learning to fly with your brand new wings!  Much of the work that happens here has to do with expanding out your sense of self into new, uncharted territory.

This is a big growth phase that can be fun, expansive and scary at the same time.  Here we challenge and move beyond concepts of “upper limits” in terms of what you, your family, your community, and your culture thought you were/are capable of.  We are stretching the concepts of human potential.

Stage 5: Mastery & Leadership

In Stage 5, you know who you are, you have learned to use your gifts and you are now beginning to make your unique contribution to the world and to life.  When you are truly living your purpose in an empowered way, things start to happen in your presence — long-standing conflicts easily become resolved, people start to open up in new ways, incredible opportunities present themselves, you feel life pouring through you — the word “grace” takes on a whole new meaning.

This phase of mastery and leadership is the opus of this work and, in my opinion, a key reason we are all here on this planet — to become self-realized.

This page presents an overview of the developmental tasks involved in the social and emotional development of children and teenagers which continues into adulthood. The presentation is based on the Eight Stages of Development developed by the psychiatrist, Erik Erikson in 1956.

According to Erikson, the socialization process consists of eight phases – the “eight stages of man.” His eight stages of man were formulated, not through experimental work, but through wide-ranging experience in psychotherapy, including extensive experience with children and adolescents from low – as well as upper – and middle – social classes. Each stage is regarded by Erikson as a “psychosocial crisis,” which arises and demands resolution before the next stage can be satisfactorily negotiated. These stages are conceived in an almost architectural sense: satisfactory learning and resolution of each crisis is necessary if the child is to manage the next and subsequent ones satisfactorily, just as the foundation of a house is essential to the first floor, which in turn must be structurally sound to support and the second story, and so on.

[CLICK HERE for more details on how to follow and encourage your child’s or teen’s social development]

Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development

1. Learning Basic Trust Versus Basic Mistrust (Hope)

Chronologically, this is the period of infancy through the first one or two years of life. The child, well – handled, nurtured, and loved, develops trust and security and a basic optimism. Badly handled, he becomes insecure and mistrustful.

2. Learning Autonomy Versus Shame (Will)

The second psychosocial crisis, Erikson believes, occurs during early childhood, probably between about 18 months or 2 years and 3½ to 4 years of age. The “well – parented” child emerges from this stage sure of himself, elated with his new found control, and proud rather than ashamed. Autonomy is not, however, entirely synonymous with assured self – possession, initiative, and independence but, at least for children in the early part of this psychosocial crisis, includes stormy self – will, tantrums, stubbornness, and negativism. For example, one sees may 2 year olds resolutely folding their arms to prevent their mothers from holding their hands as they cross the street. Also, the sound of “NO” rings through the house or the grocery store.

3. Learning Initiative Versus Guilt (Purpose)

Erikson believes that this third psychosocial crisis occurs during what he calls the “play age,” or the later preschool years (from about 3½ to, in the United States culture, entry into formal school). During it, the healthily developing child learns: (1) to imagine, to broaden his skills through active play of all sorts, including fantasy (2) to cooperate with others (3) to lead as well as to follow. Immobilized by guilt, he is: (1) fearful (2) hangs on the fringes of groups (3) continues to depend unduly on adults and (4) is restricted both in the development of play skills and in imagination.

4. Industry Versus Inferiority (Competence)

Erikson believes that the fourth psychosocial crisis is handled, for better or worse, during what he calls the “school age,” presumably up to and possibly including some of junior high school. Here the child learns to master the more formal skills of life: (1) relating with peers according to rules (2) progressing from free play to play that may be elaborately structured by rules and may demand formal teamwork, such as baseball and (3) mastering social studies, reading, arithmetic. Homework is a necessity, and the need for self-discipline increases yearly. The child who, because of his successive and successful resolutions of earlier psychosocial crisis, is trusting, autonomous, and full of initiative will learn easily enough to be industrious. However, the mistrusting child will doubt the future. The shame – and guilt-filled child will experience defeat and inferiority.

5. Learning Identity Versus Identity Diffusion (Fidelity)

During the fifth psychosocial crisis (adolescence, from about 13 or 14 to about 20) the child, now an adolescent, learns how to answer satisfactorily and happily the question of “Who am I?” But even the best – adjusted of adolescents experiences some role identity diffusion: most boys and probably most girls experiment with minor delinquency; rebellion flourishes; self – doubts flood the youngster, and so on.

Erikson believes that during successful early adolescence, mature time perspective is developed; the young person acquires self-certainty as opposed to self-consciousness and self-doubt. He comes to experiment with different – usually constructive – roles rather than adopting a “negative identity” (such as delinquency). He actually anticipates achievement, and achieves, rather than being “paralyzed” by feelings of inferiority or by an inadequate time perspective. In later adolescence, clear sexual identity – manhood or womanhood – is established. The adolescent seeks leadership (someone to inspire him), and gradually develops a set of ideals (socially congruent and desirable, in the case of the successful adolescent). Erikson believes that, in our culture, adolescence affords a “psychosocial moratorium,” particularly for middle – and upper-class American children. They do not yet have to “play for keeps,” but can experiment, trying various roles, and thus hopefully find the one most suitable for them.

6. Learning Intimacy Versus Isolation (Love)

The successful young adult, for the first time, can experience true intimacy – the sort of intimacy that makes possible good marriage or a genuine and enduring friendship.

7. Learning Generativity Versus Self-Absorption (Care)

In adulthood, the psychosocial crisis demands generativity, both in the sense of marriage and parenthood, and in the sense of working productively and creatively.

8. Integrity Versus Despair (Wisdom)

If the other seven psychosocial crisis have been successfully resolved, the mature adult develops the peak of adjustment; integrity. He trusts, he is independent and dares the new. He works hard, has found a well – defined role in life, and has developed a self-concept with which he is happy. He can be intimate without strain, guilt, regret, or lack of realism; and he is proud of what he creates – his children, his work, or his hobbies. If one or more of the earlier psychosocial crises have not been resolved, he may view himself and his life with disgust and despair.

These eight stages of man, or the psychosocial crises, are plausible and insightful descriptions of how personality develops but at present they are descriptions only. We possess at best rudimentary and tentative knowledge of just what sort of environment will result, for example, in traits of trust versus distrust, or clear personal identity versus diffusion. Helping the child through the various stages and the positive learning that should accompany them is a complex and difficult task, as any worried parent or teacher knows. Search for the best ways of accomplishing this task accounts for much of the research in the field of child development.

Socialization, then is a learning – teaching process that, when successful, results in the human organism’s moving from its infant state of helpless but total egocentricity to its ideal adult state of sensible conformity coupled with independent creativity.