Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson was born in Frankfort, Germany, on June 15, 1902. Erik's father was a Danish man who had abandoned his mother, Karla Abrahamsen, before he was born. Karla raised Eril alone for the first three years of his life in Frankfort before she remarried to Erik's pediatrician, Dr. Theodore Homberger. Karla and Theodore moved to Erik to Karlsruhe in southern Germany at about four, from Erik's recollection. Erik's name as a child and young adult was then Erik Homberger. After graduating high school, Erik traveled around Germany while taking art classes (Boeree).

When Erik was twenty-five he took a teaching position at an experimental school for American students. While teaching art he also received a certificate in Montessori education and one form the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, with the help of Anna and Sigmund Freud. Erik has also met a Canadian dance teacher, Joan Serson, while teaching. Together Erik and Joan had three children, one who later went on to be a Sociologist. Erik and Joan left Vienna when the Nazi's came into power, first for Copenhagen then to Boston, where Erik was offered a position at Harvard (Boeree).

When Erik became an American citizen he changed his last name to Erikson. Erikson became the first child psychologist in the New England area (Smith 65). He later taught at Yale and the University of California at Berkley. In 1950, Erikson left Berkeley when the professors were asked to sign "loyalty oaths." Also in this year, Erikson wrote, "Childhood and Society," where he divided the human life cycle into eight psychosocial stages of development (Erikson...Columbia). The book also contained summaries of his studies among the Native Americans, Analysis of Maxim Goriky and Adolph Hitler, and a discussion of the "American personality." He spent ten years working and teaching at a clinic in Massachusetts and ten years more back at Harvard. Since retiring in 1970, he wrote and did research with his wife. Erikson died in 1994 (Boeree).

Throughout his life Erikson developed theories of of other psychologist's such as Sigmund Freud and Heinz Hartmann, Erikson also developed theories of personality development himself. Today Eirkson is considered a Freudian ego-psychologist, which says that he agrees with Freud's theories on the id, ego, and the super-ego; however, Erikson rejected Freud's attempt to describe personality solely based on the basis of sexuality, and unlike Freud, felt that personality continued to develop beyond five years of age (Porth, 20). Erikson is most famous for his expansion and refinement of Freud's theories of personality development. Erikson argued that development functions by the epigenetic principle, which says that we develop through a predetermined unfolding of our personalities in eight stages throughout our life span. As we progress trough each stage of our success or lack of success, each stage is partially determined by our achievements in the previous stage. Erikson believed that each person has a unique personality, which gradually reveals itself through the eight stages. If we were to interfere with the progress of out personality development we may ruin the development of that individual's personality. Each stage involves certain developmental tasks that are psychosocial in nature. Erikson coined the term identity crisis, a personal psychosocial confilict that shaped a distinct aspect of personality ('Erikson,' Britannica). The various tasks are referred to by two terms, the first is what the individual is striving to achieve and the second is what the individual is at risk of developing id he or she does not successfully achieve the first term. Each stage has an optimal time to be achieved as well. Each individual has his or her own pace to go thorough life; therefore, the optimal time to achieve a stage is more of a general guideline. If a stage is managed well, we carry away a certain virtue or psychosocial strength which will help us throughout the rest of our lives. On the other hand, if we do not so well, we may develop maladaptations and malignicies, as well as endanger all of our future development (Boeree). A malignancy is the worse of the two, and involves too little of the positive and too much of the negative aspect of the task, such as a person who cannot

trust others. A maladaptaion is not quite as bad amd involves too much of the positive and too little of the negative such as a person who trusts to much.

The first stage an individual will go through in his or her personality development is Trust vs. Mistrust. The time for this stage to occur is within the newborn to two years of age range. During this time the task is for the infant to develop a sense of trust without completely eliminating the sense of mistrust (Smith, 67). This stage is very dependent on the infant's parents or guardians. If mom and dad can give the newborn a degree of familiarity, consistency, and continuity, then the child will develop the feeling that the world is a safe place to be and that people are reliable and loving. If the parents are unreliable and inadequate, if they harm or reject the child, then the child will develop mistrust. He or she will be apprehensive and suspicious of others (Boeree). Parents do not have to be perfect and should teach the child so sense of mistrust. Parents who immediately tend to their infants' every need are enforcing a sense of sensory maladjustment (Porth, 33). Erikson refers to sensory maladjustment as overly trusting, even gullible, this person cannot believe anyone would mean them any harm. Even worse is the child develops a sense of malignant tendency of withdrawal. Erikson refers to this category when describing the child who develops a sense of extreme mistrust and is often characterized by depression, paranoia, and possibly psychosis (Capps, 11). If the child develops a well-balanced sense of trust vs. mistrust, he or she will achieve a virtue of hope, which is a strong belief that, even when things are not going well, they will workout in the end (Capps, 11). One of the signs that a child is doing well in the first stage is when the child isn't overly upset by the need to wait a moment for the satisfaction of his or her needs. He or she understands that Mom and Dad are not perfect and that if he or she cannot be here right now, he or she will come soon. In other words, the infant realized that things may be tough now, but they will get better soon. This is the same ability that, in later life, gets us through disappointments in love, our careers, and many other domains of life (Boeree).

The second stage of life, early childhood, is known as a stage of autonomy v. shame and doubt. The task in this stage is to achieve a state