Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Erikson: Post−Freudian
Theory
(^272) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
British colony. He in-
tended to remain for a
year, but his first serious
identity crisis kept him
there for more than 20
years.
A week after a
judge excluded him from
a courtroom, Gandhi was
thrown off a train when
he refused to give up his
seat to a “white” man.
These two experiences
with racial prejudice
changed Gandhi’s life.
By the time he resolved
this identity crisis, his ap-
pearance had changed
dramatically. No longer
attired in silk hat and
black coat, he dressed in
the cotton loincloth and
shawl that were to be-
come familiar to millions
of people throughout the
world. During those years in South Africa, he evolved the technique of passive re-
sistance known as Satyagrahaand used it to solve his conflicts with authorities.
Satyagrahais a Sanskirt term meaning a tenacious, stubborn method of gathering
the truth.
After returning to India, Gandhi experienced another identity crisis when, in
1918, at age 49, he became the central figure in a workers’ strike against the mill
owners at Ahmedabad. Erikson referred to the events surrounding the strike as “The
Event” and devoted the core of Gandhi’s Truthto this crisis. Although this strike was
only a minor event in the history of India and received only scant attention in
Gandhi’s autobiography, Erikson (1969) saw it as having a great impact on Gandhi’s
identity as a practitioner of militant nonviolence.
The mill workers had pledged to strike if their demands for a 35% pay increase
were not met. But the owners, who had agreed among themselves to offer no more
than a 20% increase, locked out the workers and tried to break their solidarity by of-
fering the 20% increase to those who would come back to work. Gandhi, the work-
ers’ spokesperson, agonized over this impasse. Then, somewhat impetuously, he
pledged to eat no more food until the workers’ demands were met. This, the first of
his 17 “fasts to the death,” was not undertaken as a threat to the mill owners but to
demonstrate to the workers that a pledge must be kept. In fact, Gandhi feared that
the mill owners might surrender out of sympathy for him rather than from recogni-
tion of the workers’ desperate plight. Indeed, on the third day, the workers and own-
ers reached a compromise that allowed both to save face—the workers would work
266 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
According to Erikson, Mahatma Gandhi developed basic strengths
from his several identity crises.