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Karen chooses go to college
Karen weighs going to college or exploring the world instead. She chooses to attend college to get a good education and pursue a teaching career. This stage takes place in adolescence and is Erikson’s 5th stage of identity versus identity confusion. Karen is avoiding identity confusion by being able to determine what she wants her place in the American culture to be. The crisis is being unknowing of who one wants to be in society and what they want to contribute to represent their self worth. -
Karen's decision to marry Jim
Karen and Jim’s decision to marry one another is an example of Erikson’s 6th stage, intimacy versus isolation. This stage takes place in early adulthood. In the decision to enter into a committed intimate relationship they’ve chosen intimacy instead of isolation. Karen knew she’d be much more happy choosing intimacy over isolation and made her decision based of her inner knowing. The crisis is becoming a partnership means that you are committed to one another. -
Karen becomes a school teacher
In middle adulthood, Karen chooses to become an elementary school teacher after college and gets a chair on the schoolboard. She cares greatly about teaching children and showing them support. This is the seventh stage of Erikson’s timeline, generatively versus stagnation. Karen proves to be a generativity person by caring greatly for others and having chosen a career teaching and supporting the younger generations. The crisis is to have an unfulfilled life. -
Karen dies from Cancer
Karen dies from a 10 year battle with cancer. She has lived a very happy life. She and Jim lived part time in Mexico and part time in Ketchikan, AK for the past 15 years. She loved the sunshine and was able to surround herself with Spanish, her favorite language. In this eighth stage, ego integrity versus despair, prior to her death she spent the last year of her life reminiscing on all of the amazing times she shared with family and friends, and was not filled with many regrets.
