Erik Erikson, a psychoanalyst who studied under Freud, was one of the first in the field of psychoanalysis and human development to suggest that human growth and development occurs throughout the lifespan. While Freud believed our development was a psychosexual process that ended when we were in our 20s, Erikson believed we faced unique conflicts in each stage of our lives, and our growth depended upon how we resolved the conflicts. 

When I was a child, I considered everyone over the age of about 22 to be a “grownup.” It was not lost on me that the word is “grown” (past tense) up, not growing up. I thought once you arrived at adulthood, you were done learning and growing. You knew it all, or at least you knew what you needed to know and had decided not to learn the other things. And from now on, your life would be spent in routine, certainty and safety. In other words, once you were a grown-up, you would know what you were doing! 

When I got to my 20s, I soon began to realize I was not prepared to stop growing. I was working for minimum wage as a carpenter’s apprentice, walking to work to avoid gassing up my car, and calling home only late at night during the cheap long distant rate hours. I still had no sense of career direction, no steady boyfriend, no dependable form of transportation and no money. I did not feel grown up at all. And according to Erikson, I wasn’t. I was in stage 6 of my growth and development, the one where you resolve the conflict between intimacy and isolation. 

You might imagine resolving the conflict in each stage depends upon your success in the previous stages, and you would mostly be right. If we resolve the conflict between identity vs. role confusion (stage 5), we’ll find it easier to successfully build intimate relationships. It makes sense that if we know who we are, it is easier for others to get to know us and for us to stay connected to our “self” even when in the company of others. And especially when in the company of someone with whom we are falling in love. 

In my 20s, I dropped out of college, moved to Lexington, Kentucky, to work, and fell in love with and married my husband. I also had two kids and obtained my master’s degree in English. I dropped out of college because I was confused and directionless. I moved to Kentucky because I wanted to move to a city, and a close friend arranged for me to stay with her incredibly generous and loving parents while I looked for work. I married my husband because I fell in love with him and had children because I wanted them. And I got my master’s degree because the graduate teaching assistantship I was offered allowed me to once again put off thinking about my career path. My 20s were messy and directionless — anything but safe and certain!

I was hard on myself about how childish the Carol Bell version of adulthood looked. I felt certain adulthood was easier for those who were doing it right. I criticized myself for not doing better. But according to Erikson, I was right on schedule. Though my husband and I (at first frequently and later less so) shouted at each other in anger, or sometimes slammed doors, or threatened to leave, or pouted for days on end, we continued to choose one another. Looking back, I can say with confidence I successfully resolved the conflict between intimacy and isolation. It had been nip and tuck during some of those early years, but by the time I turned 30 (eight years into marriage) my husband and I trusted and connected with each other. I also had a community of friends, remained close to my family of origin, and I had learned how to understand my own emotions (most of the time) and stay connected with self.

Still thinking I would be grown-up any minute, I aged into my 30s and began Erikson’s stage of Generativity vs. Stagnation. In his book “Childhood and Society,” Erikson talks about this 7th stage of growth as a stage when we contribute to the well-being of the next generation by raising children, working productively or creating (p. 267). Between the two of us, my husband and I were pretty good at this stage. We created, we raised children, AND we were productive at work. Still, we were often confused, and routine seemed out of reach. We worried a lot about money, and we argued about where to live, finally landing in Cody, Wyoming, with a lot of regret and remorse about leaving my husband’s teenage daughter behind with his first wife. My husband’s life ended in this stage, just as he was getting ready for the last and final stage, the conflict between integrity and despair, and my time in stage 7 stage became even more confused and chaotic (and scary) as I embarked on a new career path.

I give thanks that along the path to becoming a counselor, I was introduced to Erikson’s theory of growth and development, and the idea that we are ALWAYS growing up, and we never finish learning and developing if we choose the healthy but hard work of resolving the conflicts before us. To be an adult, you do not have to be grown-up — you can (and should) be growing up. And like all things human, this presents another conflict. On the one hand, I am energized and excited by the idea that I will always have the opportunity to change and to learn new things and to reinvent myself. On the other hand, because I will always be growing and changing, it is likely, I will never get to the “easy part” of being a grown-up. 

(Carol Bell, MA, PPC, works for Foundations Counseling in Cody and is part of the local National Alliance for Mental Illness.)