Final answer:
Anna Freud considered the teenage years a significant development period, where adolescents experience psychosocial changes and enter the genital stage of psychosexual development. Conflicts usually about everyday issues tend to decrease as they mature. Erik Erikson, influenced by Anna Freud, reinforced the importance of social relationships and proposed that personality develops throughout the lifespan.
Step-by-step explanation:
Anna Freud viewed the teenage years as a period of transition between childhood and adulthood. During this stage, adolescents experience significant psychosocial changes, such as the development of a more robust sense of personal identity. Freud's theory includes the genital stage of psychosexual development, starting from puberty, wherein there's a sexual reawakening, and the focus is on directing sexual urges towards socially acceptable partners, often reflecting a desire for the opposite sex.
Adolescence is not typically marked by severe 'storm and stress' as earlier theorists like G. Stanley Hall suggested. Instead, while conflicts with parents may arise, they often pertain to day-to-day matters and tend to decrease as teens mature. This period also includes a growing understanding of the adolescent brain and its involvement in risk-taking behaviors without necessarily being more impulsive than other age demographics.
Following adolescence, individuals enter the stage of emerging adulthood, a time centered around exploration of work and love. Freud believed that successful navigation through the stages of development was crucial for psychological health, with failure to do so resulting in problems in adulthood. Similarly, Erik Erikson, influenced by Anna Freud, proposed a psychosocial theory of development which emphasized that personality develops throughout the lifespan with social relationships playing a crucial role.