Erik H. Erikson – författare

For decades Erik H. Erikson's concept of the stages of human development has deeply influenced the field of contemporary psychology. Here, with new material by Joan M. Erikson, is an expanded edition of his final work. The Life Cycle Completed eloquently closes the circle of Erikson's theories, outlining the unique rewards and challenges—for both individuals and society—of very old age.

This insight, present in all his work beginning with Childhood and Society, and particularly examined in Young Man Luther and Gandhi's Truth, finds full and mature expression in the present book.Just as Erikson's notion of the identity crisis has been obscured and confused as it has passed into everyday speech, so too have glib popularizers misused his notions of psychobiography and psychohistory. Thus, this book is of supreme importance, not merely to set the record straight, but more especially to make these vital ideas, central to our time, fully available."To deal with life history and history psychoanalytically," Erikson points out, "means to engage in a kind of circular chronology: our inquiry always points to selected periods in the past which, in throwing new light on the present, suggest new forays into the more distant past." Consequently, this book opens with autobiography; ranges through discussions of Freud and Gandhi and of the meaning of ideas on womanhood; and concludes with an examination of the role of psychoanalysis in the evolution of ethics.

In the first lecture, entitled "The Founders: Jeffersonion Action and Faith," Erikson uses selected themes from Jefferson's life to illustrate some principles of psychohistory. In the second lecture, "The Inheritors: Modern Insight and Foresight," Erikson applied his main concepts to the problems of ongoing history. The title of the lectures contains one such concept. "New identity" is the result of radical historical change and is here meant to characterize the emerging American identity as first embodied in such men as Jefferson.Erikson first explores certain themes in his examination of the emerging American identity during Jefferson's time. He then attempts to relate the Jeffersonian themes to contemporary problems of repression and suppression, of moralistic vindication, and true liberation by insight.Finally, Erikson maintains that now that children will be born by the privileged choice of parental persons, an adult environment fitting the living and the to-be-living becomes an ethical necessity.There is no question that this work ranks among Erikson's most challenging and seminal books.

A loosely connected collection of essays with an emphasis on cross-cultural analysis and on religious and moral standards for development.

In this study of Mahatma Gandhi, psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson explores how Gandhi succeeded in mobilizing the Indian people both spiritually and politically as he became the revolutionary innovator of militant non-violence and India became the motherland of large-scale civil disobedience.

In this classic psychobiography, Erik H. Erikson brings his renowned insights on human development and the identity crisis to bear on the mighty figure of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther.

The original and vastly influential ideas of Erik H. Erikson underlie much of our understanding of human development. His insights into the interdependence of the individuals' growth and historical change, his now-famous concepts of identity, growth, and the life cycle, have changed the way we perceive ourselves and society. Widely read and cited, his works have won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.Combining the insights of clinical psychoanalysis with a new approach to cultural anthropology, Childhood and Society deals with the relationships between childhood training and cultural accomplishment, analyzing the infantile and the mature, the modern and the archaic elements in human motivation. It was hailed upon its first publication as "a rare and living combination of European and American thought in the human sciences" (Margaret Mead, The American Scholar). Translated into numerous foreign languages, it has gone on to become a classic in the study of the social significance of childhood.

This book collects three early papers that—along with Childhood and Society—many consider the best introduction to Erikson's theories."Ego Development and Historical Change" is a selection of extensive notes in which Erikson first undertook to relate to each other observations on groups studied on field trips and on children studied longitudinally and clinically. These notes are representative of the source material used for Childhood and Society."Growth and Crises of the Health Personality" takes Erikson beyond adolescence, into the critical stages of the whole life cycle.In the third and last essay, Erikson deals with "The Problem of Ego Identity" successively from biographical, clinical, and social points of view—all dimensions later pursued separately in his work.

Identity, Erikson writes, is an unfathomable as it is all-pervasive. It deals with a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the core of the communal culture. As the culture changes, new kinds of identity questions arise—Erikson comments, for example, on issues of social protest and changing gender roles that were particular to the 1960s.Representing two decades of groundbreaking work, the essays are not so much a systematic formulation of theory as an evolving report that is both clinical and theoretical. The subjects range from "creative confusion" in two famous lives—the dramatist George Bernard Shaw and the philosopher William James—to the connection between individual struggles and social order. "Race and the Wider Identity" and the controversial "Womanhood and the Inner Space" are included in the collection.

Among the topics covered are: Freud's discovery that the human mind can only be studied through a partnership between observer and observed; how clinical evidence is made up of a unique mixture of subjective and objective; an observation on the way issues of identity affect not only individuals but classes of people; and an examination of the links between ego formation and institutions and traditions. Erikson also discusses the origins of ethics and looks at psychiatry as the pragmatic Western version of the universal journey to self-awareness.

The last stage, old age, challenges the individual to rework the past while remaining involved in the present. The authors begin this work with their theory of life's stages through old age. In Part two, they discuss their interviews with twenty-nine octogenarians, on whom life history data has been collected for over fifty years. Part three is a discussion of the life history of the protagonist in Ingmar Bergman's film Wild Strawberries. In Part four, "Old age in our society", the authors offer suggestions for "vital involvement." Erik H. Erikson is winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

This collection of his writings reflects the evolution of his ideas over the course of 50 years, beginning with his earliest experiences in psychoanalysis in Vienna. The papers cover a wide spectrum of topics, from children's play and child psychoanalysis to the dreams of adults, cross-cultural observations, young adulthood and the life cycle. The text also contains reminiscences about colleagues such as Anna Freud and Ruth Benedict who played important roles in Erikson's life and work.

Erik H. Erikson is recognized as one of the world’s leading figures in the field of psychoanalysis and human development. His ideas about the stages of development, the sources of identity, and the interdependence of individual growth and historical change revolutionized our understanding of the nature and course of psychological growth. Erikson, whose work first described the now familiar concepts of "identity crisis" and "life cycle," provided an unprecedented framework for considering the individual psyche within society and culture. Unveiling a dynamic process of psychological development, he emphasized the tendency toward growth and the integration of multiple influences—the biological, social, psychological, cultural, and historical. With writings from Erikson’s entire career, including major work from Childhood and Society, Insight and Responsibility, Young Man Luther, and Gandhi’s Truth, this invaluable reader charts the influence of Erikson’s thinking in the areas of child psychology, development through the lifespan, leadership, and moral growth.

Erickson postulates that a space-time orientation provided by a viable worldview is, complimentary to the inner work of the individual psyche and is attuned to its multiple functions. In a central chapter, the author links the phylogeny and the ontogeny of worldviews by describing stages in the ritualization of everyday life—that is, the interplay of customs (including the use of language) with from birth to death convey and confirm the "logic" of the visions predominant or contending in a society. He emphasizes the playful and yet compelling power of viable ritualization to connect individual growth with the maintenance of a vital institutions; but he also illustrates the fateful tendency of human interplay to turn into self-deception and collusion, of ritualization to become deadly ritualism—and of visions to end in nightmares of alienation and distraction. Erickson advocates the pooling of interdisciplinary insights in order to clarify the conscious and unconscious motivation which works for or against the more universal and more insightful worldview essential in a technological age.

To love and to work, Freud's famous definition of psychological maturity, here becomes the focussing principle for a renewed examination of the dominant themes that play themselves out in adult life. Erik Erikson, Neil Smelser, and nine leading experts in adult development consider the stages that adults pass through and the crises that adults confront as they attempt to create a meaningful life.Themes of Work and Love in Adulthood is a book that raises many fascinating questions about adult experience. How, for example, does work affect personality? Are love and work in competition; must one be pursued at the expense of the other? Is there a point in life past which men lay less stress on mastery and turn more toward emotional fulfillment? And do women experience a shift in the opposite direction? More generally, why do adult crises fall into predictable patterns and how do adults grow as they respond to these crises? Is the recent broadening of standards for adult conduct an opportunity for personal liberation or a source of personal debilitation?Much more than a summary of current work on adulthood, Themes of Work and Love in Adulthood is a book full of unusual rewards: Erik Erikson's sensitive reconstruction of the entanglements of love and work revealed in the correspondence between Freud and Jung; Ann Swidler's fascinating discussion of the historical transformation of the love ideal from medieval times to its contemporary form; Robert LeVine's analysis of the adult life course in an African culture. When these unique essays are added to the important position papers by major theorists of adult development—Daniel Levinson, Roger Gould, and Marjorie Fiske—the result is a book that is both useful and exciting.