Erikson's Recovery

After reading The Recover Process Utilizing Erikson’s Stages of Human Development by Suzanne E. Vogel- Scibilia, Kathryn Cohan McNulty, Beth Baxter, Steve Miller, Max Dine and Frederick J. Frese III I find it extremely interesting that many of the proposed stages of recovery are in a reflection of the developmental stages proposed by Erikson. After taking abnormal psychology, I was able to categorize the treatments psychologists used into the stages proposed. Many of which are parallels from Erikson. These processes of treatment fall under the developmental stages of recovery. I found it interesting that the stages of treatment I learned in abnormal psychology employed by many psychologists shadow the eight stages of human development proposed …show more content…
The authors state that the first three stages are the most crucial. I found it interesting that each stage is almost exactly like the stages of development the only difference is that they are geared towards mental disorders rather than general development. The first stage of human development proposed by Erikson is trust versus mistrust, for recovery it is trust versus doubts. To me trust versus mistrust is basically the same as trust versus doubts. In the first stage of human development a child questions if the world is a reliable place and if objects are consistent. In other words are the objects the same across time and space. For recovery development this stage is when onset of the disorder occurs. The patient questions if they can trust the treatment they are being given. This almost is like when babies are in their first stage of development and wonder if they can trust the permanence of objects and the world, will the objects be the same. Babies wonder if they can trust anything just like the patient wonders if they can trust the treatment, to make the disorder either easier to cope with or to cure …show more content…
As with the previous stages they mimic each other as well. This is where both types of people, those suffering from mental disorders and those progressing through general human development (usually children again) begin to use their new skills to complete new tasks. Children discover what they are good at and pursue that. Those recovering use their new coping skills that they are taught to create hope for recovery and to minimize the effect their disability has on them. In this stage they also learn how to deal with society’s questions like ‘what is wrong with you?’ and ‘why don’t you work?’ (Vogel-Scibilia, McNulty, Baxter, Miller, Dine, Frese III;