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Elise Brown, born April 11, 1962, has been home from delivery for almost a month. Ann Brown, Elise's mother, has been struggling with postpartum depression and, therefore, has been unable to provide proper care for her daughter. The crisis in this stage is an infant's need to establish a bond to a reliable caretaker (trust) or risk altering the infant's ability to depend on others for their needs (mistrust).
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Elise Brown is in college (age 25) working towards her degree to be a teacher. Elise has to balance pursuing her career goals and dating to find a potential husband. The crisis in this stage is between finding someone to pursue a committed relationship with (intimacy) or avoiding said relationships to focus on oneself because of an inability to properly complete the previous stage (isolation).
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Elise Brown (age 55), who is near retirement after working as a high school math teacher for 25 years, is unsure how to proceed with her new stage of life as a single woman without kids. The crisis of this period is deciding to focus energy on helping others and contributing to society and the younger generation (generativity) or prioritizing oneself and disregarding the needs of others (stagnation).