Fortoula “Toula” Portokalos- Middle Childhood
In this portion of the movie, Fortoula “Toula” Portokalos is six years old, middle childhood, and is experiencing the industry versus inferiority psychosocial crisis. According to Erikson, this is the stage in a person’s development when their basic approach to work is established. “Industry is an eagerness to acquire skills and perform meaningful work” (Newman &Newman, 2012, p.314) and Inferiority is “feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy [that] come from two sources: self and the social environment” (Newman &Newman, 2012, p 315). Toula is dealing with the inferiority portion of this psychosocial crisis.
At this stage in her development, Toula should be making friends with her peers and forming meaningful relationships. She longs to be a part of the group, but is an outcast among her peers due to her culturally different background. In one of the opening scenes as she is walking past a table with a group of girls to sit alone she states, “ When I was growing up I knew I was different. The other girls were blonde and delicate and I was a swarthy six year old with sideburns. I so badly wanted to be like the popular girls all sitting together talking, eating their Wonder bread sandwiches”(Goetzman , Hanks, Wilson…show more content… Toula has never had an intimate relationship, has only worked in her family restaurant, and has isolated herself from the outside world. Often “the obstacles to the attainment of an intimate relationship are many. Some arise from childhood experiences of shame, guilt, inferiority, or alienation which undermine the achievement of personal identity’ (Newman &Newman, 2012, p.468). From the MFT standpoint Toula should be working on establishing her independence from her parents and attempting to initiate a more permanent lifestyle and seeking to form intimate relationships with people she is unrelated