John Shea OSA   professor of Pastoral Psychology, points out in his writings that: “Spirituality is a developmental reality and it comes into its fullness in adulthood.” In this he refers not simply to the attainment of years lived, but to the actuality of adult living. “Spirituality can be defined as: that which gives meaning to life and allows us to participate in the larger whole…..in all of this it depends on adult functioning.” No matter how lofty its focus, spirituality is not something “other” than the human or “transcending” the human, or “added on” to the human. It is a fully human phenomenon.

Erik Erikson’s theory of development gives us a helpful framework to understand some aspects of what human and spiritual development looks like. For what Erikson is saying about human development is also applicable in regard to ones relationship with God. Erikson emphasises that the self evolves through stages. The first five stages help us to come to some sense of personal identity , the last three are about the flowering of that identity. As one negotiates through these stages, the personality develops capacities necessary for the next phase of growth.

Stage 1 (Trust v Mistrust)

Trust is at the centre of our relationship with God and it is also our earliest human experience. The experience of the infant with their parent or care-giver is the symbol of that relationship of trust….everything depends on it….life itself is linked to it. The trust is seen to develop when the child lets the mother out of sight without undue anxiety or rage, because now she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability.  When we observe the child gazing into the eyes of a parent there is something of a “hallowed presence” in it. This caring presence has something of the God relationship about it.

Stage 2 (Autonomy v Shame)

We believe that God greatly respects individual freedom. If autonomy means we learn to develop our own “I am”  then its our own “I am” that relates to the “I am”  of God. It is based on trust but also freedom If this freedom and trust are experienced within the relationship with the parents…. where they don’t overwhelm but respect the emerging person, then this too reflects something of our sacred relationship with God. On the other hand too much shaming does not lead to genuine propriety but to a secret determination to try to get away with things.

A God who waits and respects is reflected in the ebb and flow of a healthy relationship between child and parent.

Stage 3 (Initiative v Guilt)

Erickson writes about this stage: “There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding…….the child suddenly seems to “grow together” both in his person and in his body. He is in free possession of a surplus of energy which permits him to forget failures quickly and to approach what seems desirable. The child develops the ability to take simple initiatives and is less focused on acts of  self-will and defiance.

On the other hand the images of God are typically “superego” images….so it’s often a God of guilt. Erikson calls it the psychopathology of Religion, it’s the sick religion….and it stays for a long long time…with excessive punishing, rule making, enforcing. For many people they never get beyond it. Many people today who reject Religion are rejecting the Superego version of God.

The adolescing self is in a state of dependency on the experiencing of others until such time as it can fully rely on its own experiencing. Part of this dependency lies in the fact that fixed or “prearranged”  understandings of reality come from those whom the adolescing self loves and from whom it needs love in return, and part of this dependency lies also in the fact that this self’s own judgement and reflective capacities are still coming to maturity. Of course there is always the danger that we can get stuck at this stage and continue through the life cycle in a state of dependency which becomes more and more inappropriate as the years go on.

Stage 4 (Industry v Inferiority)

This inner stage seems all set for “entrance into life,” except that life must first be school life, whether school is field or jungle or classroom. The child must forget past hopes and wishes, while his exuberant imagination is tamed and harnessed to the laws of impersonal things. He now learns to win recognition by producing things.

Thus the fundamentals of technology are developed as the child becomes ready to handle the utensils , the tools and the weapons used by the big people.

Alongside all this learning for life we learn about the God of Religion. We learn all the things the culture says about God. This is the time for Religious education. It’s also time to learn about the cultural superego.

Stage 5 (Identity v Role Confusion)

The growing and developing youth faced with the revolution happening to their body and mind and with tangible adult tasks ahead of them are now primarily concerned with what they appear to be in the eyes of others as compared with what they feel they are.

The religious task is to find my God. It has to be a God in harmony with the self. It needs to have mutuality. In a sense we all have a need to have a different God….this speaks to us of the “vastness of God.”  Maybe it has something to do with the personal God having a different personality to each individual. Much in the same way we experience our parents. We experience the same parents in different ways…equally we experience God differently. All have something of the truth yet each is unique for each person.

Stage 6 (Intimacy v Isolation)

Based on ‘fidelity’ to our identified values and self image is the emerging adult capacity for practical ‘commitment.’ The level of satisfaction we find in our work is a fair measure of correspondence to our achieved identity and values. Thus we may enjoy achieving order and efficiency in administration, perceiving benefit to our clients in caring, education and service occupations, nurturing growth in plants or animals, or using our physical strength and mechanical skills to produce tangible and concrete satisfactions in building, manufacturing and maintenance industries.

Alternatively, we may have identified with values of personal power, money and material comfort and status, in which case we might commit ourselves to achieving a position of power, or the highest bank balance we can in the shortest possible time, by whatever means we find available and acceptable to us.

Emotional residues from earlier stages may have shaped a self image characterized by withdrawal, compulsion, inhibition or inferiority and these can lead to isolation and a shrinking from intimacy.   Our initial sense of separateness and worthwileness, and a capacity to relate co-operatively may have to be reworked before progress toward a favourable ratio of intimacy and isolation can begin.

Stage 7 (Generativity v Stagnation)

Somewhere around the mid or later twenties we progress into what Erikson describes as ‘Adulthood.’ Our effectiveness and responsibilities increase. Our capacity to balance our inclinations for intimacy and isolation will have shaped our relationships.

We will now look at how the ‘love’ of young adulthood becomes the ‘care’ of adulthood.

Whether or not we have our own children as part of our generativity, we form what Erikson called the’ generational link’, passing on to the next generation our accomplishments, our failures and our example. He points out that as we try to fulfil this responsibility, we need every one of the strengths arising from our development in earlier stages: hope and will, purpose and skill, fidelity and love.

However where generativity becomes inactivated a sense of stagnation either provides respite for renewal of inspiration and energy, or may overwhelm those whose generative outlets are frustrated or non-functional. Pathology creeps in when our perception becomes bent in the service of justifying our refusal to take care, and our attitudes harden into rejection, even aggression. We are then in a position to condemn their differences from ourselves and to ignore their human potential for development and independent generative living.

In summary:  ‘care is an enduring concern for what has been generated by love’………this becomes a sound pastoral mission statement. There is no reason to justify the person who needs care ….we just care because the person needs the care.  

Stage 8 (Integrity v Despair)

In this final stage Erikson discussed the task of ego development as that of forming a favourable ratio between ’integrity’ and ‘despair’, forging out of our experience the quality of ‘wisdom’, and defeating the pathologies of too much ‘disgust’ and ‘disdain’.

This is a time to accept life as it is. This is what it is and in a sense this is what it had to be…..that is acceptance. In this there is a lot of forgiveness that has to happen, of self and others

As middle years become later years, Erikson said, we have an increasing need for a philosophy that can encompass losses and despair, and maintain for us the qualities of hope, trust and faith in the face of bereavement and our own now apparent mortality and approaching death.

Erikson writes: Only in him who in some way has taken care of things and people and has adapted himself to the triumphs and disappointments adherent to being, the originator of others or the generator of products and ideas-only in him may gradually ripen the fruit of these seven stages. I know no better word for it than ego integrity.

Through our reflection on Erikson’s stages we can see something of the challenges and invitations that confront us at each stage of the life cycle. In the spiritual journey toward self knowledge each of us is challenged to grow into a full human being…the responsibility for this of course is ours not anyone else’s.  This journey can be seen as a sacred quest, since we are sacred beings. The quest moves away from the notion that our relating to God is somewhat static, instead it is seen as developing as we ourselves develop and mature. It invites us to recognise the tremendous power of the “Superego God” and invites us to grow out of that, and experience the liberation of the God of Life. This image or experience of God is “unfettered” unbound and no longer embedded in elements of fantasy, and distortion. This “unfettered” imaging of God and reality according to O’Shea is always unique fully authored and owned by the adult self.

I’ll finish this brief reflection with the words of Michael Downey American editor of Spirituality and editor of the New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality.

“Since Christian Spirituality is not just a dimension of the Christian Life , but is the Christian Life itself lived in and through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It concerns absolutely every dimension of life, mind and body, intimacy and sexuality, work and leisure, economic accountability and political responsibility, domestic life and civic duty, the rising costs of health care and the plight of the poor and wounded both at home and abroad. Absolutely every dimension of life is to be integrated and transformed by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Sources for this paper include:

Erikson E. H. (1964) Insight and responsibility. New York: Norton.

Erikson E. H. (1968) Identity Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.

Shea J. (2004) Adulthood a missing perspective. American Journal of Pastoral Counselling

Shea J. (1995) The Superego God Pastoral Psychology Vol. 43 No. 5.

Shea J. (2003) The Adult Self: Process and Paradox Journal of Adult Development Vol. 10, No. 1.

Shea J. (1995) The God Beyond Pastoral Psychology. Vol. 43, No. 6.

Downey M. (1997) Understanding Christian Spirituality New York. Paulist Press