Nipissing University

The podcast discusses Erikson's psychosocial theory of development and Indigenous holistic theory, focusing on the interconnectedness of stages of life and the Seven Grandfather Teachings. Erikson's eight stages from birth to death emphasize overcoming crises for psychosocial growth. The Seven Grandfather Teachings guide Anishinaabeg people in living a good life, aligning with Erikson's stages for emotional and social development. The first four stages highlight trust, autonomy, initiative, and industry, with guiding principles like love, respect, courage, and honesty aiding healthy development. Indigenous holistic theory emphasizes balance, harmony, and using Indigenous knowledge for healing. Both theories stress the importance of early childhood development for shaping personal and social growth. Hi, everyone. Welcome to our podcast. My name is Diva. I'm an Anishinaabe Kwe from Bear Island, Waasnee First Nation. I'm here with Rylan and Julie, and I'll let them introduce themselves. Hello, Wajih. My name is Julie Hunter. I'm a student in the BSW program and also a member of Moose Cree First Nation. I'll pass it over to Rylan. Hello. My name is Rylan Hester. I'm from Mooshkaganish, Quebec. I'm in third year of social work, and I'll pass it back to Diva. So today we're going to be talking about Erickson's psychosocial theory of development and connecting with Indigenous holistic theory, which includes seven grandfathered teachings and the seven stages of life. To talk about Erickson's theory, here's Rylan. Okay. I will briefly explain the psychosocial development from Erickson's eight life stages that start from birth to extend to death. Erickson explains that we must pass through these eight stages for individuals to reach their goals and overcome crisis at each stage. It's important to note that eight stages focus on emotional and social factors that influence an individual's psychosocial growth. It's important to master each stage. Otherwise, individuals can experience social, emotional struggles throughout their lifespan if they lack the skills to overcome their crisis. On the articles mentioned, all people experience psychosocial crisis during all eight stages that may impact their personality development negatively, if not overcome. I will go over these eight stages and briefly explain them. I will only focus on the stages from one to four, but I will mention the four remaining. The first stage is trust and mistrust. From birth to 18 months, this is when babies are fully creating a strong bond from their mother's connection. Stage two, autonomy and shame and doubt. This is where infants and three-year-olds are starting to become more fully physically active and developing physical competencies in their life and slowly becoming more independent. Stage three, initiative and guilt. From preschool years from three to five, they need things out of their way and explore their own abilities. They're slowly trying to achieve goals and gaining self-direction in their life, being more active. Stage four, industry versus this stage is during the children become more competent and become more adaptive and they're carrying out their increasingly complex task. To become encouraged and praised more from others, their chances of acquiring more adequate self-proficiency and self-belief are increased. So the four remaining, I'm just going to run through them, naming them. Identity versus confusion. Stage six, intimacy versus isolation. Stage seven, generativity versus stagnation. Stage eight, integrity versus despair. It's also noting one of the articles mentioned overcoming all eight stages. In the presence of adequate support structures as well as actual support and education and guidance, people who are emotionally and socially healthy can successfully navigate numerous psychosocial struggles in their life. So I'll pass it back to Liza. Thanks Dr. Island. Okay, so I'm just going to go over Indigenous holistic theory. All this information came from our article by Kathy Absalon. So it presents Indigenous holistic theory as a knowledge set for Indigenous social work practice. The theory uses the medicine wheel model and details levels of interconnectedness with the self, individual, family, community, nation, society, and creation. To imagine this better, if you think about it as kind of a smaller circle at the middle and then as our connectedness flows up from ourselves to each level, then the circles get bigger. All of these levels also include, you know, babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, adults, and elders. Each level is also affected by the historical, social, political, and economic frameworks that affect Indigenous peoples. There's also a spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental component to each level. So Indigenous holistic theory as a framework provides a tool for understanding the nature of balance, harmony, and, you know, balancement, which means living the good life. This framework says that Indigenous knowledge and culture is foundational to living a good life, which would imply the absence or attack on Indigenous ways of knowing and being creates an imbalance. This theory also provides a strength-based approach to healing, which pretty much means that Indigenous people have the knowledge to heal holistically. Indigenous holistic theory, which includes the knowledge of the seven stages of life and the Seven Grandfather Teachings, has similarities with Erickson's stages of development. To talk more about that, I'm going to hand it over to Julie. Thanks, Deva. So in connecting the Seven Grandfather Teachings with the stages of life, we're looking at, you know, Erickson's theory of psychosocial theory, and there are eight stages of development that Ryland explained. So throughout our lifetime, each stage signifies a challenging experience or crisis that helps to shape our personal, social, and emotional health. And according to the Seven Grandfather Teachings, this is an Anishinaabeg guiding principle used to guide Anishinaabeg people in living a good life that Deva just talked about, Niinabetazwin, that support emotional, social, and spiritual growth. These principles include love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, and truth. While the principles are neither specific nor limited to developmental stages, they're used to promote social, emotional, and spiritual growth throughout all stages of our life. The principles are shared, they share commonalities and could assist with the developmental stages that are outlined in Erickson's psychosocial theory. So when we're applying the Seven Grandfather Teachings into our lives from the early stages of life, these guiding principles could be applied in each stage to promote personal and social growth needed for healthy development that Erickson highlights in his psychosocial theory. As each stage of development requires a challenging experience to overcome, each of using the guiding principles, the child with support from their primary caregiver or their parent would accomplish that goal and could proceed on to the next. So I'll go over how we can kind of tie some of these guiding principles into Erickson's theory of development. The first stage of development focuses on trust versus mistrust. So the first stage of development focuses on trust, as I just mentioned, where the guiding principle of love could be applied. The primary caregiver or parent provides consistent love and care, and this allows the infant to develop a sense of trust, which is crucial for healthy childhood development. The next stage of development refers to autonomy, which is the stage of exploration and learning, because that's how children grow. The guiding principle of respect would be a beneficial component in this stage to foster independence without shame or guilt in exploring. When learning children are met with guidance without shame, they have the tools that they need for healthy development in this stage. So respect refers to valuing oneself, those around us, and all of creation. The next stage, the third stage, refers to initiative versus guilt. By taking risks and acting on thoughts and ideas, children are learning and growing. The guiding principle of bravery is developed when children are provided with the support in being brave and gaining new experiences towards growth. The next stage refers to industry versus inferiority, where children are discovering and developing more self-awareness. The guiding principle of honesty is essential, where children developing honesty will support their growth by understanding what works for them, what's not working. They can develop tools and skills needed to overcome the challenges that are outlined in Erikson's theory of development. So as our discussion is focused more so on early childhood development, we'll mainly focus on these first four stages of development. However, I do think it's important to note the stages between five and eight, which focus on identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity, where we would also use the guiding principles throughout these stages of life and development into those specific areas. So I'm going to pass it back to Deva. Okay, awesome. Thanks, Julie. So aside from the grandfather teachings, there's also the nostalgic stages of life. There are seven stages. Just for my discussion, I'm going to focus on the first three stages of life. So, and those are the good life, which is birth to age seven, the fast life, and the wandering slash wondering life. So while Erikson's first three stages are broken up between the ages of birth to age seven, the good life stage is all-encompassing of those years. Both frameworks state that the early years are very important developmentally for children to grow into the next stage of their childhood and adolescence. Erikson's stages kind of deviate from the Neshave stages of life in stages four, industry versus inferiority, and five, identity versus rural confusion, as opposed to the fast life, which is ages seven to 14, and the wandering life, which is ages 15 to 21. The fast life and industry versus inferiority stages are about trying to figure out what you're good at and what you like. The fast life prepares First Nations boys for their fasting ceremony and girls for their berry fast when they first start their menstrual cycle. The wandering slash wondering stage is about challenging the ideals that you have been taught and finding your own passion life, which is also similar to identity and rural confusion, because teenagers must be able to find their sense of self and build confidence. Both frameworks state that this is the time for building self-esteem and your skills to be able to socialize and have new experiences. A study done by Andrea Miller with indigenous teenagers who are in foster care on Vancouver Island found that coming of age ceremonies and rites of passage give them more connection to their identity and community and serve as a pathway to wellness. So we're just going to talk about experiences from our own life. So for me, I had my naming ceremony to get my Anishinaabe name at age seven. And that is kind of, you know, introducing me to my community on a 12-year First Nation on Bear Island. And it's not just about having the support of their family, but also the support of the community and trying to figure out your gifts. It relates to the transition from the good life, you know, a time of unconditional support and fostering confidence to the fast life, learning the skills, preparing for adolescence in the Anishinaabe stages of life. And then rites of passage can also be applied to Erickson's fourth stage of development. So I'm going to hand it over to Julie. Thanks, Diva. So an example that I also wanted to share was specific to the first stage of life at early childhood development. As an Indigenous mother, I held a walking out ceremony for my daughter, Tegan, when she was just one year old. The ceremony was held early on a sunrise morning in the spring in my home community of Moose Cree First Nation on our cultural grounds. So leading up to this day, my daughter had never touched Mother Earth until she, you know, built a connection of trust and, you know, relationships and bonds with, you know, family and community before connecting her with Mother Earth for the first time. The ceremony was held with our family, our friends and elders in the community, and where we use traditional practices of prayer and medicine to support her spiritual identity and growth and her connection to the land with Mother Earth and all of creation. In preparing for this, I gathered medicine for her spirit bundle, which consists of multiple medicines to, as she has first touched the earth for the first time, where we would begin, where she would begin to learn her role on Mother Earth, where an elder sang and prayed for her on her journey. We also held a naming ceremony shortly after. However, I know we are kind of pressed for time. I hope to have an opportunity to talk a little bit more about this, but I'm glad that Deva brought it up in her piece here, because it is an important aspect of growth, where growing up, we have that sense of spiritual identity, that sense of community and belonging. So what I'll do is I'll pass it over to Ryland, as I believe he has some personal experience to share as well. Hello, this is Ryland. From my personal experience, from focusing on Erickson and more Indigenous perspective as well, mine is I was brought up more in the mixed culture, from Western and tradition. For example, I'm not going to go too deep on the first stage, because Julia already explained that part. But I was not part of that stage at the time, because there was not really practice at that time. It was later, it came about later on. So I was part of more of a stage four, with a more tradition. They taught us how to hunt at that age. I believe I was seven at the time. I remember I went out hunting with my dad and he taught me all I could pretty much know about survival on the land. So he taught me as much as possible. He taught me how to use gun safety, how to hunt, what not to shoot, when to shoot, and how to prepare traditional meals. So that later followed me throughout my, from that age to my present moment. So yeah, I'm continuously learning as I go, and we can slowly reconnecting with more traditional knowledge and traditional history as well. So I'm going to pass it back to Deva. So including our session for today, I think it's important to recognize that the Seven Grandfather Teaching in the early stages of life and throughout various cycles of our life is extremely important. And that when we're looking at each stage of our life, and applying the Seven When we're looking at each stage of our life, and applying the Seven Grandfather Teaching, it'll allow us the tools that are needed in our journey, which include love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, and truth. And I think that, you know, it'll really complement various stages of our life and development. So thank you so much for having us today. We really appreciate it. Miigwetch.