Erik Ericson was a psychologist who was heavily influenced by another doctor named Sigmund Freud. While Freud spoke from a psychosexual perspective, Erikson was a little different and spoke about the psychosocial stages. It talks about the Super Ego and Id of a human being, about certain crises and rewards that a person will go through in the course of his life, and about the growth and development of the personality in a predetermined order. In the eight stages of psychosocial stages, Erikson explains the social and psychological needs of an individual. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Sigmund Freud was an inspirational man in 1900. He introduced more words to people that were used then and are still used today such as anal, repression, denial, libido and many more. Freud was known as the founding father of psychoanalysis, methods for treating mentally ill people. Freud's theory of psychosexuality was based on the sexual desires and experiences of people, especially women. She also identified some patterns in these women by understanding their sexual history and their partners. Both of their theories were similar and had some differences. With the eight stages of psychological stages and Freud's theories, the difference is that Freud focused on sexual development while Erickson focused on the socialization and growth of the adolescent. Another difference was that Erikson used the length of a person's life while Freud only used a certain period of a person's sexual lifestyle. Unlike Freud, Erikson was not very descriptive about how psychological stages lead to one another or how useful it would be for the next stage of life. Although Erikson does not lead his stages to others, he mentions that his work is intended as a tool but not as factual statements..