Erik Erikson

Erik Homburger Erikson (June 15, 1902 – May 12, 1994) was a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings, and for coining the phrase identity crisis.

Biography

Erikson's heritage is unique. His biological father was an unnamed Danish man who abandoned Erik's mother before he was born. His mother, Karla Abrahamsen, was a young Lutheran woman^* who raised him alone for the first three years of his life. She then married Dr. Theodor Homburger, who was Erik's pediatrician, and moved to Karlsruhe in southern Germany.

The development of identity seems to have been one of his greatest concerns in Erikson's own life as well as in his theory. During his childhood and early adulthood he was known as Erik Homberger, and his parents kept the details of his birth a secret. He was a tall, blond, blue-eyed boy who was raised in the Jewish religion. At temple school, the kids teased him for being Nordic; at grammar school, they teased him for being Jewish.

Erikson's greatest innovation was to postulate not five stages of development, as Sigmund Freud had done with his psychosexual stages, but eight. Erikson elaborated Freud's genital stage into adolescence, and added three stages of adulthood.

Erikson is also credited with originating the concept of Ego psychology, which stressed the role of the ego as being more than a servant of the id. According to Erikson, it was the ego's responsibility to organize one's life, to promote harmony with one's physical and social environment, to promote healthy growth and adjustment, and to provide a source of self awareness and identity.

In 1950 he was investigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy for alleged communist influence. Erikson left Berkeley when professors there were asked to sign loyalty oaths. ^* He spent ten years working and teaching at the Austen Riggs clinic in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and ten years more back at Harvard.

Erikson's theory of personality

Although Erikson always insisted that he was a Freudian, subsequent authors have described him as an "ego psychologist," insofar as, in contrast to the stress laid in orthodox Freudianism on the id, Erikson emphasised the ego. Perhaps the most conspicuous way in which his theory differs from that of Freud is that, in contrast to Freud's list of stages that take development up to the age of eleven or twelve, Erikson lists eight stages of development, going across the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development are marked by a conflict, for which successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome:

Stage One – from birth to one, marked by the conflict between trust and mistrust;
Stage Two – from one to around two, marked by autonomy versus doubt;
Stage Three – from three to six, marked by feelings of initiative versus inadequacy;
Stage Four – corresponding to Freud's latency period, is marked by industry versus inferiority;
Stage Five – adolescence, marked by a conflict between identity versus confusion;
Stage Six – early adulthood, marked by intimacy versus isolation;
Stage Seven – later adulthood, marked by generativity versus stagnation;
Stage Eight – marked by integrity versus despair.

Favourable outcomes of each stage are sometimes known as "virtues", a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it is applied to medicines, meaning "potencies". For example, the virtue that would emerge from successful resolution of the eighth stage is that of wisdom.

The virtues, in the order of the stages in which they may be acquired, are hope, will, purpose, confidence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom.

Critique of Erikson

Most empirical research into Erikson has stemmed around his views on adolescence and attempts to establish identity. James Marcia's work has distinguished different forms of identity, and there is some empirical evidence that those people who form the most coherent self-concept in adolescence are those who are most able to make intimate attachments in early adulthood. This supports Eriksonian theory, in that it suggests that those best equipped to resolve the crisis of early adulthood are those who have most successfully resolved the crisis of adolescence.

Works

Major works

Childhood and Society (1950)
Young Man Luther. A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (1958)
Gandhi's Truth: On the Origin of Militant Nonviolence (1969)
Adulthood (edited book, 1978)
Vital Involvement in Old Age (with J.M. Erikson and H. Kivnick, 1986)
The Life Cycle Completed (with J.M. Erikson, 1987)

Collections

Identity and the Life Cycle. Selected Papers (1959)
A Way of Looking at Things: Selected Papers 1930-1980 (Editor: S.P. Schlien, 1995)
The Erik Erikson Reader (Editor: Robert Coles, 2001)

Related works

Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson (Lawrence J. Friedman and Robert Coles, 1999)
Erik Erikson, His Life, Work, and Significance (Kit Welchman, 2000)