| Abstract: | Clients in psychotherapy and people in other intensive relationships seem to confront a predictable sequence of stages or emotional issues in the development of those relationships. The sequence can be described by analogy with the human life cycle using E. H. Erikson's (see PA, Vol 39:10989) "eight ages of man." This progression of psychosocial nuclear conflicts can be understood as a dialectic in which each new synthesis, a positive resolution of a conflict, begets a specific antithesis which is the negative pole of the next stage. This dialectical logic accounts for the content, progression, and impetus of the stages in the epigenesis of interpersonal relationships. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
