ERIK ERIKSON: BIOGRAPHY, PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY, CONTRIBUTIONS, WORKS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994) was a German-born psychologist and psychoanalyst who wrote on topics such as social psychology, individual identity, politics, and culture. His discoveries and theories helped create new approaches to treating all kinds of mental and social problems, and brought him great respect throughout his life.

Despite being one of the greatest practitioners of psychoanalysis in history, his approach was quite different from that of Sigmund Freud, the creator of this discipline. Among other things, he placed great emphasis on the study of the self, a component that he saw as much more important than was considered in classical theories.

Erik Erikson. Source: See page for author

Erik Erikson never got a college degree. However, this did not prevent him from teaching at some of the most prestigious educational centers in the world, such as Harvard, Berkeley and Yale. At first he began his career in Europe, but after going into exile to the United States to escape the Nazi movement, he obtained great prestige in this country.

Erik Erikson's best-known contribution is psychosocial theory, which describes eight stages of maturation that people supposedly go through throughout our lives. Each of them is marked by a psychological conflict, and depending on whether or not we can resolve it, this produces a series of consequences in our mind.

Biography

Early years

Erik Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany. The son of a single mother, Karla Abrahamsen, she raised him alone for several years before marrying a local physician, Dr. Theodor Homberger. They were both of Jewish descent, which would get Erik in trouble later when the Nazis came to power.

During his childhood, Erik did not know that Homberger was not his real father, as both he and his mother hid it from him. When he finally discovered the truth, his surprise caused Erikson many doubts about his own identity. It is not known what happened to his biological father, although today we do know that he was born due to an affair that his mother had outside of her first marriage.

The doubts this discovery caused Erik Erikson helped spark his interest in the way identity is formed. Years later, he confessed that the mystery about his real father became one of the main forces driving his dedication to psychology, having been confused during his childhood about who he really was and how he fit in with his closest environment.

Undoubtedly, his interest in identity formation was further strengthened by the fact that as a child he never fit in in schools, due to having quite atypical characteristics. On the one hand, his Jewish ancestry caused him to be rejected by German children; while his physical appearance set him apart from the rest of the children who shared his religion.

Youth

Once he graduated from high school, Erikson's stepfather tried to convince him to follow in his footsteps and study medicine. However, young Erik was not interested in this field, and entered art college to pursue more creative studies. Soon after, however, he decided to drop out of college altogether and spent some time touring Europe with his friends and reflecting on what he wanted.

This period in his life ended when Erik Erikson received an invitation to become a teacher at a progressive school created by Dorothy Burlingham, a personal friend of Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna. She soon realized the ease with which Erikson treated children and how well he got along with them, so she invited him to formally study psychoanalysis.

Although at first he was not too interested in this offer, he soon decided to accept it and obtained two certificates: one from the Montessori Teachers Association and another from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. From this point on, he continued to work for several years at the Burlingham and Anna Freud school while also undergoing psychoanalysis as a patient of the latter.

All this process helped Erik Erikson to get to know himself better and to take an interest in the therapeutic process of psychoanalysis. This would be one of the most important periods of his life, since it laid the foundations for all his later studies on the subject.

Family and subsequent years

While still working at the Burlingham school, Erikson met what would later become his wife, a Canadian dance instructor named Joan Serson. The couple married in 1930, and throughout their lives they had three children together. Soon after, in 1933, they both moved to the United States to escape growing European anti-Semitism.

Once in the United States, Erik Erikson landed a teaching position at Harvard Medical School despite not having a college degree. There he changed his name (which until then was Erik Homberger) by which he was later known, as a way of forging his own identity. At the same time that he taught, he also created a private psychoanalysis clinic for children.

Throughout his career in the United States, Erikson combined his work as a professor at different prestigious centers (such as the universities of Yale and Berkeley) with his clinical practice and his research on different areas of psychology.

Erikson published numerous books in which he discussed his theories and research. Some of the most important were Childhood and Society and The Completed Life Cycle. Finally, he passed away on May 12, 1994, when he was 91 years old.

Psychosocial theory and its stages

Erik Erikson's most important contribution to the field of psychology was the theory of psychosocial development. In it he tried to explain in detail the mental changes that people go through throughout our lives, reinterpreting Freud's ideas and adding his own conclusions.

In the theory of psychosocial development, Erik Erikson showed the importance of our environment and our culture in the formation of our personal identity. Furthermore, he emphasized the role that the "I" plays in our behavior and psychological state.

The main difference between Erikson's theory and Freud's is that while the latter believed that the main engine of development was the sexual drive, the former argued that the most important thing was social interaction. In addition, he viewed each of the life phases as a struggle to resolve an internal conflict.

If the person was able to resolve each of his internal conflicts, he would acquire a series of capacities and abilities that would help him to function in his social environment and to become a healthy individual. Otherwise, serious psychological problems could appear.

Erikson's psychosocial theory divides human development into eight distinct stages, which we will study below.

1s- Trust vs mistrust

The first stage goes approximately from birth until the child is one and a half years old. In it, the relationship with the mother or main caregiver will be the most important element. Depending on whether it has been good or bad, the person will have more or less facility to trust others in the future and to establish healthy relationships.

For example, if the relationship has been good, the child would feel confidence, the capacity to be vulnerable, security and satisfaction with his mother, which in later stages would translate into similar feelings within other close relationships.

2- Autonomy vs doubt and shame

The second stage goes from one and a half years to three years. In this period, the child learns to control her body and mind. The conflict has to do mainly with toilet training: if the child masters it correctly, he will acquire a sense of confidence and autonomy, while he will be filled with shame and doubts if he does not succeed or takes longer than necessary.

3- Initiative vs guilt

The third stage occurs between three and five years of age. Here, the main conflict is the struggle between the need to test one's abilities, curiosity and initiative, versus guilt and fear of negative reactions. This stage is overcome if parents and other adults encourage the child to gradually develop her initiative.

4- Industriousness vs inferiority

The fourth stage occurs between 5 and 12 years. Here, the child's main motivation is to learn and continue to develop their autonomy. However, there can be conflict if you feel inferior to others and believe that you are not as valid as the rest.

5- Exploration vs diffusion of identity

This stage coincides with adolescence, at which time the main doubt has to do with one's own identity. Young people are beginning for the first time to distance themselves from their authority figures, and try to explore who they are and where they want to direct their lives.

The conflict is resolved if a strong sense of self is formed, while the diffusion of one's own identity would imply not having passed this stage.

6- Identity vs isolation

The sixth life stage described by Erik Erikson goes from the end of adolescence to approximately 40 years of life. In it, the main learning for the individual is how to relate to others in a satisfactory way, from a position of mutual trust, respect, company and security.

In the event that the person avoids intimate relationships, the consequences can be very negative both at this stage and later.

7- Generativity vs stagnation

The penultimate stage is from 40 years to 60. At this time, the person usually seeks to have a better balance between productivity and time spent with loved ones or working on their own interests.

The conflict is resolved if the person feels that what they are doing is worthwhile, while the feeling of not having done anything useful would imply not having managed to overcome this phase.

8- Integrity of self vs despair

The last stage occurs between the age of 60 and the death of the person. In this phase, the individual stops producing as much as he did previously, and begins to reflect on the direction his life has taken so far. The conflict is considered to be overcome if the person manages to be at peace with his own life trajectory and mortality.

Other contributions from Erikson

Basic skills in development

In addition to the basic theory of psychosocial development, in some of his writings Erik Erikson spoke of the fundamental skills that a person must acquire throughout his life to become a healthy and truly functional individual. Each of these skills would be related to a stage of development. He also called them "virtues."

For Erikson, the eight fundamental abilities or virtues would be in order the following:

- Hope.

- Willpower.

- Purpose.

- Competition.

- Loyalty.

- Love.

- Ability to offer care.

- Wisdom.

Importance of the "I" in the personality

Another of Erikson's most important contributions to the field of psychology was the redefinition of the "self" as one of the most influential components in the internal life of human beings.

In classical psychoanalytic theory, the mind is considered to be divided into three parts: the id (which controls impulses and emotions), the superego (related to moral and ethical norms) and the self (in charge of managing reality). For Freud, this last component only fulfills the function of mediating between the other two, and has little real power over our behavior.

However, for Erikson, the self plays a fundamental role in our well-being, providing us with a sense of self-identity that helps us organize our thoughts and emotions in a coherent way.

Published works

Throughout his career, Erikson published several books related to his research. The most important were the following:

- Children and society (1950).

- Insight and responsibility (1966).

- Identity: youth and crisis (1968).

- The truth of Gandhi: on the origins of nonviolence (1969).

- The completed life cycle (1987).

References

1. "Biography of Erik Erikson (1902-1994)" in: Very Well Mind. Retrieved on: January 28, 2020 from Very Well Mind: verywellmind.com.
2. "Erik Erikson (1902-1994)" in: Good Therapy. Retrieved on: January 28, 2020 from Good Therapy: goodtherapy.org.
3. "Erik Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development" in: Psychology and Mind. Retrieved on: January 28, 2020 from Psychology and Mind: psicologiaymente.com.
4. "Erik Erikson" in: Britannica. Retrieved on: January 28, 2020 from Britannica: britannica.com.
5. "Erik Erikson" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: January 28, 2020 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.