ABSTRACT
Erik Erikson believed that the child’s journey through the first four stages influences his/her personality in adulthood. In other words, who we are as adults and what our beliefs are, are influenced by our childhood experiences from 0–12. Erikson has identified three stages that correspond with early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood – intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and ego integrity versus despair, respectively. Erikson’s last stage, integrity versus despair, happens in late adulthood and some of the issues that individuals at this life stage deal with include coming to terms with how one has lived one’s life and accepting that death is inevitable. Erikson also believes that the process of reminiscence is healthy and necessary for this stage in ageing where it is a part of the process of ‘life review, an evaluative process in which elders make judgments about their past behaviour’.
