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Erik Erikson, a German-born American psychologist, struggled with identity as a child due to his borrowed name and Jewish upbringing. His theories expanded on Freud’s and included eight stages of development, each with a unique crisis. Psychoanalysis could help maladjusted adults relearn lessons from childhood.
Erik Erikson was an important psychological theorist in the development of the field. Born in Germany in 1902, Erikson apparently struggled with his identity as a child. He never knew his father and grew up with a borrowed name: Erik Homberger, named after his stepfather, Dr. Theodore Homberger. Also, although Erik was a blond boy with blue eyes, his mother and stepfather raised him in the Jewish faith, causing him even more identity conflicts.
In a highly symbolic act, he gave himself the name Erikson as an adult, indicating that his identity depended on himself and no one else – making him, in effect, his own father. These identity issues undoubtedly impacted Erik Erikson’s developmental stage theory as much as the education he received.
As a young man, Erik Erikson traveled and studied in Europe. One of his teachers and mentors was Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud. In 1933, after studying with Anna Freud for six years, Erikson moved to the United States, where he taught psychology at several prestigious schools. Since most of his career – and his theories – took place in the United States, Erikson is considered an American psychologist.
Erik Erikson’s theories have shown influence from his Freudian background, as well as his personal search for identity. His developmental stage theory adapted and expanded on Freud’s theories of child development. While Freud’s theory stopped at the end of infancy, Erikson believed that development continued throughout the life span. His theory included eight stages, rather than Freud’s five, and each was characterized by a crucial identity conflict.
For example, Erik Erikson theorized that in childhood, a child struggled with the decision to trust or distrust his or her caregivers. The decision to trust prepares the child for the conflict experienced in the next stage – the potty training stage of infancy, in which a child learns autonomy over his or her bodily functions. However, if the child’s environment or experiences lead him to learn distrust, the consequences follow him for the rest of his development, eventually producing a maladjusted adult.
Each stage has its own unique crisis. Infants face trust issues, toddlers learn to be independent or self-doubt, toddlers learn to take initiative or feel inadequate, and elementary school children experience industriousness or inferiority. Adolescents, of course, face identity issues, emerging from the period with a strong sense of who they are or with identity confusion. Adults, overlooked by Freud’s theories, struggle first with intimacy, then with productivity, and finally with their reflections on their lives.
A wrong turn during any of these stages could produce any number of psychological problems. Therefore, Erik Erikson believed that psychoanalysis could help maladjusted adults relearn the lessons they struggled with in childhood. Erikson died in 1994.
