Joan M. Erikson - Böcker

The authors offer a rationale for their own ideas of the central role of activity in all recovery and rehabilitation, emphasizing throughout that planned activities in therapeutic communities are not just another form of adjunctive therapy. Activity is a vital component of change, and without activity and change there is no recovery and no growth.

The verified facts concerning the life of Saint Francis of Assisi are few and even the given dates are disputed. Yet legend and his continuing presence have formed an impelling image which takes on greater stature as time goes on, as if in defiance of the lacking evidence.

Joan Erikson explores the crucial role played by the physical sense at every stage of psychological growth from birth to old age, finding parallels between the creation of art as we usually define it and the creation of self—the most artful act of all. In the experience of making and doing, she located a primary source of human growth and vitality.Wisdom and the Senses is itself a celebration of art, with the progressive stages in the life cycle revealed through woven charts, reproduced here in full color. The work of artists, much as the words and ideas of Joan Erikson, takes us on a journey of understanding that leads to the meaning of wisdom.

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.