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Wing Ling Li
ERIKSON, ERIK (1902–1994)
Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on
June 15, 1902. At the age of twenty-five he accepted
an invitation to educate children whose parents were
studying with Sigmund Freud in Vienna. While in Vi-
Erik Erikson extended psychoanalytic theory in several significant
and important ways. (Psychology Archives, University of
Akron)
enna Erikson underwent psychoanalysis with Freud’s
daughter Anna Freud and was trained in the psycho-
analytic tradition. Because of the rise of fascism in Eu-
rope, he immigrated to the United States in 1933 and
became the first child psychoanalyst in Boston. Erik-
son held positions at Harvard University, Yale Uni-
versity, the University of California–Berkeley, and
several other eminent institutions over the course of
his career, despite the fact that he had no formal aca-
demic training beyond high school.
Erikson was trained as an orthodox psychoana-
lyst, but he extended psychoanalytic theory in several
significant and important ways. In contrast to Freud’s
approach, in which personality was formed and rela-
tively fixed at the age of five, Erikson took a lifespan
approach to personality development, assigning im-
portance to individuals’ lives after early childhood.
Erikson divided the development of personality into
eight stages over the lifespan, with each stage charac-
terized by its own crisis and two possible outcomes: (1)
trust vs. mistrust; (2) autonomy vs. shame and doubt;
(3) initiative vs. guilt; (4) industry vs. inferiority; (5)
identity vs. role confusion; (6) intimacy vs. isolation;
(7) generativity vs. stagnation; and (8) integrity vs. de-
spair. According to Erikson, the conflicts in each stage
arise because societal and maturational factors make
new demands on an individual, and each conflict or
crisis must be resolved before an individual is pre-
pared to proceed to the next stage.
Erikson referred to the eight crises enumerated
above as psychosocial stages of development, thereby
emphasizing the important role that social and cul-
tural factors play in personality development. This
emphasis contrasted with Freud, who emphasized
psychosexual development. Drawing upon his an-
thropological work with the Sioux and Yurok Indians
as well as other groups, Erikson stressed that the se-
quence of the psychosocial stages was the same invari-
ant across cultures, but the ways in which individuals
from different cultures met each of the conflicts var-
ied. Furthermore, Erikson highlighted the fact that
the unique time and historical factors of the larger so-
ciety also affected personality formation across the
lifespan.
Further, Erikson argued that the main task for in-
dividuals in life was the quest for identity and not, as
Freud believed, the defense against unpleasant ten-
sions. Erikson placed the crisis of identity formation
in the adolescent period, in which individuals must
achieve an integrated understanding and acceptance
of themselves in society. The achievement of identity
formation was thought to be central to all subsequent
stages of development.
In sum, Erikson’s work has had a major impact on
the field of developmental psychology. Despite the140 ERIKSON, ERIK