Chapter 8: Erickson – Post-Freudian Theory
Part 1: Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson is one of the few personality theorists from a Western perspective who addressed the entire lifespan. He shifted from Freud’s emphasis on psychosexual conflicts to one of psychosocial crises, which have unique manifestations through adulthood and old age. Erikson’s theory has always been popular, but as our society has become increasingly older, the need has grown to understand the aged individual, making Erikson’s perspective even more valuable and relevant today than it was when he first proposed it. If, indeed, Erikson’s perspective on the personality changes occurring in adulthood and old age do become more relevant with time, it may result in an interesting change in Erikson’s place in psychology. Although most personality textbooks devote a chapter to Erikson, and he is typically covered in lifespan developmental texts as well, he is not mentioned in most history of psychology textbooks, and those that do mention him do so only briefly. As popular as he is with students of psychology, as well as among most psychology faculty, becoming a common topic in the history of his field would be a distinct honor.
It is also important to note that Erikson was first and foremost a psychoanalyst, and a child psychoanalyst at that. He did not neglect the importance of childhood as he pursued the psychosocial changes that accompany aging.
The most curious aspect of Erik Erikson’s life is certainly that his last name was not actually Erikson. No one alive today knows the name of his real father, and he never learned it either. He implored his mother to tell him who his father was, as did his wife, Joan, but Erikson’s mother had promised her second husband, Theodor Homburger, the man who raised Erikson and whose name Erikson had been given, that she would never reveal the truth. And she kept that promise. When Erikson and his family moved to the United States, their son, Kai, was taunted by schoolmates who called him “hamburger, hamburger.” So, Erikson and his wife turned to the Scandinavian tradition of naming a son after his father, and they called their son Kai Erik’s son, or Kai Erikson. They then adopted the surname themselves, becoming Erik and Joan Erikson. It is also surprising to note that Joan Erikson’s name was not Joan. Her first name was Sarah, and as a child she was called Sally. According to her daughter, Sue, she hated both names, and eventually chose to be called Joan (Sue Erikson Bloland, 2005).
Erik Homburger Erikson was born Erik Salomonsen on June 15, 1902, near Frankfurt, Germany. His mother, Karla Abrahamsen, was from a wealthy Jewish family in Copenhagen, Denmark. She had married a man named Valdemar Salomonsen, but her husband left Europe within a day of their marriage and went to North America; she never saw him again and he seems to have had no further relationship with her. A few years later she became pregnant, and in order to avoid scandal, she either