The psychodynamic understanding of the personality and its disorders rests heavily upon the study of the life cycle. All persons go through a cycle of gestation, maturation, maturity, decline and death. The epigenetic principle maintains that the critical tasks of each developmental phase must be met and surmounted at the proper time. Erikson’s and Piaget’s approaches are discussed. (37 pp.)
Download Tag: Theodore Lidz
The Family: The Developmental Setting
The child’s development into an integrated individual is guided by the dynamic organization of his family, which channels his drives and directs him into proper gender and generation roles. The child must grow into and internalize the institutions and roles of the society as well as identify with persons who themselves have assimilated the culture. (39 pp.)
