Coun 510: Erik Erikson

David Manock Ph.D.

www.thetituswalk.com

Resources

• Graduate Notes, Fuller Theological Seminar, School of Psychology

• Internet Research

• PC Study Bible

Content

• History

• Books

• Ego Psychology

• Developmental Theory

• Stages of Development

• Research

• Clinical Issues

• Integration

History

Erikson

• “Erik Homburger Erikson (June 15, 1902 – May 12, 1994) was a German developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings, and for coining the phrase identity crisis.”

Mother• “Erik Erikson's lifelong interest in

psychology of identity may be traced to his childhood. He was born as a result of his mother's extramarital affair and the circumstances of his birth were concealed from him in his childhood. His mother, Karla Abrahamsen, came from a prominent Jewish family in Copenhagen [1], which traced its origin to the northern German lands [2]. Her father, Josef, was a merchant in dried goods; her mother Henrietta died when Karla was only 15. Karla's older brothers Einar, Nicolai, and Axel were active in local Jewish charity and helped maintain a free soup kitchen for indigent Jewish immigrants from Russia [3].”

Jewish• “Since Karla Abrahamsen was officially

married to Jewish stockbroker Waldemar Isidor Salomonsen at the time, her son, born in Germany, was registered as Erik Salomonsen. There is no more information about his biological father, except that he was a Dane and his given name probably was Erik. It is also suggested that he was married at the time that Erikson was conceived[citation needed]. Following her son's birth, Karla trained to be a nurse, moved to Karlsruhe and in 1904 married a Jewish pediatrician Theodor Homburger. In 1909 Erik Salomonsen became Erik Homburger and in 1911 he was officially adopted by his stepfather.”

Nordic Identity

• “The development of identity seems to have been one of his greatest concerns in Erikson's own life as well as in his theory. During his childhood and early adulthood he was known as Erik Homburger, and his parents kept the details of his birth a secret. He was a tall, blond, blue-eyed boy who was raised in the Jewish religion. At temple school, the kids teased him for being Nordic; at grammar school, they teased him for being Jewish.”

Anna Freud• “As a youth, Erikson was a

student and teacher of art. While teaching at a private school in Vienna, he became acquainted with Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud. Erikson underwent psychoanalysis, and the experience made him decide to become an analyst himself. He was trained in psychoanalysis at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute and also studied the Montessori method of education, which focused on child development.[1]”

Nazis• “Following Erikson’s

graduation from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933, the Nazis had just come to power in Germany, and he emigrated with his wife, first to Denmark and then to the United States, where he became the first child psychoanalyst in Boston. Erikson held positions at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Judge Baker Guidance Center, and at Harvard’s Medical School and Psychological Clinic, establishing a solid reputation as an outstanding clinician.”

Yale• “In 1936, Erikson accepted a

position at Yale University, where he worked at the Institute of Human Relations and taught at the Medical School. After spending a year observing children on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, he joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he was affiliated with the Institute of Child Welfare, and opened a private practice as well. While in California, Erikson also studied children of the Yurok Native American tribe.”

Childhood and Society• “After publishing the book for

which Erikson is best known, Childhood and Society, in 1950, he left the University of California when professors there were asked to sign loyalty oaths.[2] He spent ten years working and teaching at the Austen Riggs Center, a prominent psychiatric treatment facility in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he worked with emotionally troubled young people. n the 1960s, Erikson returned to Harvard as a professor of human development and remained at the university until his retirement in 1970.”

Contribution

• “Erikson's greatest innovation was to postulate not five stages of development, as Sigmund Freud had done with his psychosexual stages, but eight. Erikson elaborated Freud's genital stage into adolescence, and added three stages of adulthood. His widow Joan Serson Erikson elaborated on his model before her death, adding a ninth stage (old age) to it, taking into consideration the increasing life expectancy in Western cultures.”

Psychopathology

• “After Freud, a number of prominent psychoanalytic theorists began to elaborate on Freud's functionalist version of the ego. They put much effort into theorizing the ego's various functions and how they can be impaired in psychopathology. Much of their work focused around strengthening the ego so it could better cope with the pressures from the id, super-ego, and society in general.”

“Gandhi’s Truth”

• “His 1969 book Gandhi's Truth, which focused more on his theory as applied to later phases in the life cycle, won Erikson a Pulitzer Prize and a U.S. National Book Award.”

Books

Books

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Ego Psychology

Ego Psychology

• “Erikson is also credited with being one of the originators of Ego psychology, which stressed the role of the ego as being more than a servant of the id. According to Erikson, the environment in which a child lived was crucial to providing growth, adjustment, a source of self awareness and identity.”

continued• “The central functions of the ego were

traditionally seen as reality-testing, impulse-control, judgment, affect tolerance, defense, and synthetic functioning. An important conceptual revision to Freud's structural theory was made when Heinz Hartmann argued that the healthy ego includes a sphere of autonomous ego functions that are independent of mental conflict. Memory, motor coordination, and reality-testing, for example, ought to be able to function without the intrusion of emotional conflict. According to Hartmann, psychoanalytic treatment aims to expand the conflict-free sphere of ego functioning. By doing so, Hartmann believed, psychoanalysis facilitates adaptation, that is, more effective mutual regulation of ego and environment.”

Clinical Technique

• “The clinical technique most commonly associated with ego psychology is defense analysis. Through clarifying, confronting, and interpreting the typical defense mechanisms a patient uses, ego psychologists hope to help the patient gain control over these mechanisms.”

Defense Mechanisms• “n psychoanalytic theory, defence

mechanisms are unconscious resources used by the ego to reduce conflict between the id and superego and thereby anxiety. For that reason they are more accurately referred to as ego defence mechanisms. They can thus be categorized as occurring due to the following scenarios:

• When the id impulses are in conflict with each other;

• When the id impulses conflict with superego values and beliefs;

• When an external threat is posed to the ego.”

Developmental Theory

Developmental Psychology• “Developmental psychology,

also known as Human Development, is the scientific study of progressive psychological changes that occur in human beings as they age. Originally concerned with infants and children, and later other periods of great change such as adolescence and aging, it now encompasses the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes, problem solving abilities, conceptual understanding, acquisition of language, moral understanding, and identity formation.”

Psychoanalysis• “Psychoanalysis' is a family

of psychological theories and methods based on the work of Sigmund Freud. As a technique of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis seeks to discover connections among the unconscious components of patients' mental processes. The analyst's goal is to help liberate the patient from unexamined or unconscious barriers of transference and resistance, that is, past patterns of relating that are no longer serviceable or that inhibit freedom.”

Social Development

• “Psychosocial development as articulated by Erik Erikson describes eight developmental stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. In each stage the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges. Each stage builds on the successful completion of earlier stages. The challenges of stages not successfully completed may be expected to reappear as problems in the future.”

continued

• “Although Erikson always insisted that he was a Freudian, he is better described as a Neo-Freudian. Subsequent authors have described him as an "ego psychologist," insofar as, in contrast to the stress laid in orthodox Freudianism on the id, Erikson emphasised the ego. Perhaps the most conspicuous way in which his theory differs from that of Freud is that, in contrast to Freud's list of stages that take development up through adolescence, Erikson lists eight stages of development, spanning the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development are marked by a conflict, for which successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome, for example, trust vs. mistrust, and by an important event that this conflict resolves itself around, for example, weaning.”

Stages of Development

Stages• “Stage One Oral-Sensory: from birth to one, trust vs. mistrust,

feeding; • Stage Two Muscular-Anal: 1-3 years, autonomy vs. shame, toilet

training; • Stage Three Locomotor: 3-6 years, initiative vs. guilt,

independence; • Stage Four Latency: 6-12 years, industry vs. inferiority, school; • Stage Five Adolescence: 12-18 years, identity vs. confusion,

peer relationships; • Stage Six Young Adulthood: 18-40 years, intimacy vs. isolation,

love relationships; • Stage Seven Middle Adulthood: 40-65 years, generativity vs.

stagnation, parenting; • Stage Eight Maturity: 65 years until death, integrity vs. despair,

acceptance of one's life.”

continued• “Favourable outcomes of each stage are sometimes known as

"virtues", a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it is applied to medicines, meaning "potencies." For example, the virtue that would emerge from successful resolution. Oddly, and certainly counter-intuitively, Erikson's research reveals with breath-taking clarity how each individual must learn how to hold both extremes of each specific life-stage challenge in tension with one another, not rejecting one end of the tension or the other. Only when both extremes in a life-stage challenge are understood and accepted as both required and useful, can the optimal virtue for that stage surface. Thus, 'trust' and 'mis-trust' must both be understood and accepted, in order for realistic 'hope' to emerge as a viable solution at the first stage. Similarly, 'integrity' and 'despair' must both be understood and embraced, in order for actionable 'wisdom' to emerge as a viable solution at the last stage.”

Virtues

• “The Erikson life-stage virtues, in the order of the stages in which they may be acquired, are:

• hope • will • purpose • competence • fidelity • love (in intimate relationships, work and family) • caring • Wisdom”

Research

Adolescence

• “Most empirical research into Erikson's theories has stemmed around his views on adolescence and attempts to establish identity. His theoretical approach was studied and supported, particularly regarding adolescence, by James Marcia [3]. Marcia's work extended Erikson's; distinguishing different forms of identity, and there is some empirical evidence that those people who form the most coherent self-concept in adolescence are those who are most able to make intimate attachments in early adulthood. This supports Eriksonian theory, in that it suggests that those best equipped to resolve the crisis of early adulthood are those who have most successfully resolved the crisis of adolescence.”

James Marcia

• “James E. Marcia is a Canadian developmental psychologist, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.”

continued• “He is best known for his work in the social psychology of

development, where he expanded on the Psychosocial Theory work of Erik Erikson.

• Marcia studied Erikson's work, particularly on adolescent psychosocial development. Erikson had suggested that the normative conflict occurring in adolescence is the opposion between identity and confusion (identity crisis). Marcia elaborated on Erikson’s proposal[1] by suggesting this stage consists neither of identity resolution nor identity confusion as Erikson claimed, but the extent to which one both has explored and committed to an identity in a variety of life domains including politics, occupation, religion, intimate relationships, friendships, and gender roles. His Theory of identity achievement states that there are two distinct parts that form adolescent identity: a crisis and a commitment. He defined a crisis as a time of upheaval where old values or choices are being reexamined. The outcome of a crisis leads to a commitment to a certain value or role.”

ISI• “Marcia developed the Identity Status Interview, a method of semi-

structured interview for identity research, and subsequently proposed four stages, or Identity Statuses, of psychological identity development:

• Identity Diffusion, the stage in which the young person is not currently going through a crisis and has not made a commitment

• Identity Foreclosure, the stage in which the young person has made a commitment without having gone through a crisis

• Identity Moratorium, the stage in which the young person is currently in a crisis but has not made a commitment

• Identity Achievement, the stage in which the person has gone through a crisis and has made a commitment to a certain value or role”

Clinical Issues

Class Discussion

Integration

1 John 2:1-6

• 2:1 “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” NIV

1John 2:7-11

• 7 “Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.” NIV

1John 2:12-14

• “2 I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. 13 I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. 14 I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” NIV