Identity And The Life Cycle

Book Description

Erik H. Erikson's remarkable insights into the relationship of life history and history began with observations on a central stage of life: identity development in adolescence. This book collects three early papers that—along with Childhood and Society—many consider the best introduction to Erikson's theories.

"Ego Development and Historical Change" is a selection of extensive notes in which Erikson first undertook to relate to each other observations on groups studied on field trips and on children studied longitudinally and clinically. These notes are representative of the source material used for Childhood and Society.

"Growth and Crises of the Health Personality" takes Erikson beyond adolescence, into the critical stages of the whole life cycle.

In the third and last essay, Erikson deals with "The Problem of Ego Identity" successively from biographical, clinical, and social points of view—all dimensions later pursued separately in his work.

Customer Reviews:

Identity and the Life Cycle.......2007-09-06

The book was delivered to me complete and in the condition that it was sold to me in. I would recommend and use this seller for future transactions.

Erickson's Ident and life cycle is a classic.......2007-05-07

For those licensed counselors who work with adolescents, Erickson's book is a good review of some basic psychological concepts that form personalities in people of all walks of life. This book is especially good for those that work with youth in foster care and the criminal justice system.

Review of Erikson.......2007-01-03

I bought this book for school and would have found it to be interesting, even if it weren't a class requirement.

Erikson Set the Standards... and Defined the Therapeutic Objectives.......2006-12-23

Erikson's Hurdles

The child clears...

Trust (at age 0-2)...
or she goes "polyanna," paranoid, or both
Autonomy (at age 2-5)...
or he goes enmeshed, alienated, or both
Initiative (at age 5-8)...
or she goes passive, aggressive, or both
Industry (at age 8-14)...
or he goes dependent, manipulative, or both
Identity (at age 14-25)...
or she goes diffused, rigid, or both
Intimacy (at age 18-35)...
or he goes boundary-challenged, boundary-rigid, or both
Generativity (at age 25-65)...
or she goes dependent, manipulative, or both
Integration (at age 45-75)...
or he goes disintegrated, dishonest, or both

Erik meets Teddy Millon in the alley and they decide:

Paranoid Personality is paranoid distrust and alienated autonomy.
Antisocial Personality is paranoid distrust and aggressive autonomy.
Narcissistic Personality is paranoid distrust and addictive dependence.
Histrionic Personality is infantile enmeshment and manipulative industry.
Obsessive Personality is paranoid distrust and manipulative industry.
Passive-Aggressive Personality is infantile enmeshment and corrupted initiative.
Dependent Personality is passive initiative and manipulative industry.
Avoidant Personality is alienated autonomy and boundary rigidity.
Schizoid Personality is identity diffusion and boundary rigidity.

Borderline Personality is, of course, just "both" (in whatever combination).

All of them lead to corrupted Identity, Intimacy, Generativity and Integration.

To correct the situation, the child must born - and raised - again.

Erikson's hurdles define the path to be taken the second time. Clear them, and one has realistic trust, effective autonomy, appropriate initiative, contributive industry, true identity, meaningful intimacy, useful generativity and contented integration.

Should it be required reading in The Profession every two or three years? Erikson set the -standards- in Identity and the Life Cycle. The therapist's job is -simply- to apply them in practice. Most of us forget that.

Toys and Reasons: Stages in the Ritualization of Experience

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Toys and Reasons: Stages in the Ritualization of Experience
Erik H. Erikson
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393011232

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Remains valuable as historical perspective

The Life Cycle Completed
Erik H. Erikson
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393317722

Customer Reviews:

Remains valuable as historical perspective.......2003-08-19

Erikson's psychosocial stages of human development are standard fare in introductory psychology textbooks. In this slim volume you will find Erik's personal explanation of these stages and three short chapters by Joan (25 pages total) that elude to an additional ninth stage. Both authors were long-lived (Erik to 91; Joan to 93+), and, accordingly, offer a perspective that relatively few others will share.

Having spent most of the last year teaching cognitive psychology, I was struck by the antiquated writing style and absence of empirical justification for Erik's conclusions. He is clearly indebted to the clinical observations and theoretical formulations of Sigmund Freud, and he devotes his entire first chapter to the task of making this indebtedness clear. It reads as though he were attempting to justify his slight deviation from the master.

The second chapter is another apologia, this one specifically addressing the synthesis of Freud's psychosexual with Erik's psychosocial stages. It is in this chapter that Erik presents his (in)famous eight-stage chart, but it is not discussed in depth.

The more detailed elaboration of the eight stages is attempted in chapter three. Erik starts with old age, rather than with infancy, arguing that the end goal is necessary to understand how the stages relate. His stage explanations are filed with word etymologies, casual references to clinical examples, and sweeping generalizations that embrace world histories, social movements, and philosophies. It would be hard to imagine how one could write this material to be more distinct from the careful limitations and operational definitions required in current psychological research.

Erik's last contribution is an extension of the individual emphasis in psychoanalysis into the social realm where he develops the concept of ego development within a social milieu.

The concluding chapters by Joan are quite different from what comes before. She advocates a ninth stage beyond old age but does not explicitly define details compatible with Erik's earlier charts. Her metaphorical style paints a picture of gerotranscendance (emphasis on "dance") in which healthy resolution of earlier stage conflicts leads to a deepening appreciation of the past while living within the constrained, care-receiving present. In this present moment Joan finds an expansion of self that embraces others and a sense of communion with all things, including death itself. These chapters read like a self-eulogy rather than additional theoretical work.

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"Childhood and Society" Erik H. Erikson.......2007-05-14

An Uber-Classic--Required reading for anyone in psychology. No! make that anyone, period.

Don't worry, You are only having an 'Identity- crisis'........2006-05-09

This book published in 1950 was Erikson's breakthrough book, the first one by which he became known to a wide popular audience. Certain of the ideas formulated in this book have become part of the language of our general culture, most notably the concept of 'identity- crisis'.
At the heart of the theoretical framework of this work is Erikson's conception of eight- stages of life.
The first of these stages he calls the 'oral- sensory'.It involves the conflict between basic trust and mistrust.
The second is called the muscular- anal involving the confluct between Autonomy and Shame and Doubt.
The third is the Locomotor Genital involving the conflict between Initiative and Guilt.
The fourth is the Latent involving the conflict between Industry and Inferiority.
The fifth is Adolescence where the Identity- Crisis comes into play at a time of Role- confusion.
The sixth is Young Adulthood in which Intimacy is in conflict with Isolation.
The seventh is Adulthood where Generativity conflicts with Stagnation.
The final is 'Maturity' or "Old Age' where Despair threatens Ego Integrity.
In this work Erikson brings case - history, comparitive anthropological data in showing how the human personality is transformed during the person's lifetime also through its encounters with Society . A pioneering work of great importance.

A classic and food for thought.......2000-04-03

Read it just because it's a classic or read it because it has interesting things to say for today. Read it because it's so well written. The narrative just flows, and before you know it you've absorbed some pretty important concepts.

Erikson addresses nothing less than the role of psychology in the world, and the role of childhood in our social worlds. It's a combination of the clinical, the social, and the developmental, a combination of psychology and history. Case studies are presented and large themes are addressed.

"...we are also forced to recognize a universal blind spot in the makers and interpreters of history," writes Erikson, "... they ignore the fateful function of childhood in the fabric of society" (p. 404).

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Erikson is the man when it comes to understanding identity........2001-07-08

Admittedly, Erik Erikson is not an easy read (in fact his biographer Lawrence Friedman speculates what Erikson could have become had he been a more disciplined researcher, and writer.) Nevertheless this book provides keen insight into the phenomenon of the adolescent identity crisis.

"Crisis" in Eriksonian parlance is not used to connote an "impending catastrophe," but rather a "necessary turning point, a crucial moment, when development must move one way or another, marshaling resources of growth,recover, and further differentiation." Erikson deals effectively with a process that is at the core of the individual and in the core of the individual's communal culture.

After reading Lawrence Friedman's biography on Erikson entitled "Identity's Architect," I have come to appreciate the richness of Erikson's observations, such as "I shall present human growth from the point of view of the conflicts, inner and outer, which the vital personality weathers, re-emerging from each crisis with an increased sense of inner unity...," knowing that Erikson himself came to such conclusions only after examining his own storied past.

The illegitimate son of a Danish mother, and a father of unknown nationality, "Identity's Architect" weathered many a conflict, both inner and outer, as he journeyed toward a sense of his own identity.

Customer Reviews:

somewhat disappointing.......2005-05-01

This might've been a worthwhile study if Erikson had not watered down his Freudianism. For example, Luther displays numerous traits of what Freud would describe as an anal personality: not only was he angry and uptight, he was obsessed with farts, butts, and feces. Does Erikson pursue this angle? Not consistently. Instead, he suggests renaming the anal stage the "independence stage" and compares Luther to a typical adolescent. This sort of watering down in endemic here.

Erikson focuses on the notion that Luther went through an identity crisis. Unfortunately, Erikson's notion of an "identity crisis" is so bland and general that it is hard to imagine anyone who has not gone through such a crisis, and thus it says little about Luther in particular. Further, Erikson's ambiguity about Luther becomes annoying as he constantly swings from criticizing his behavior to defending him as a supposedly great man. He frequently gets off track and explores side issues.

Finally, Erikson's understanding of the Reformation is limited at best. He blindly accepts every anticlerical cliche about the Catholic Church, and offers simplistic versions of German history and politics. On the other hand, he does offer occasional insights and throws out some spicy tidbits about Luther's private life. A curious mix of purience and dullness which left me wishing for what might have been.

A pioneering work in psychohistory .......2005-01-11

This is Erikson's breakthrough work in psychohistory. He reads the inner conflicts of Luther and connects them convincingly with great historical events. In this particular case he chooses a historical figure whose violence in some way undermines and contradicts the very religious vocation his life is built upon. Erikson shows how the revolutionary Luther in conflict with his own violent father and himself turns against the world of corrupt medieval indulgence- laden Catholicism and uses his own personal energy and story to create a powerful change in history, the Reformation.
This is an admirable piece of theorizing and research combined and a fascinating read.

Engrossing Standard Work.......2001-04-12

The father-son relationship Erikson explores here is very interesting. The most convincing aspects of his analysis are those most closely based on Luther's own writings, such as Luther's deep paralyzing dread at celbrating his first mass in front of his earthly father, as he mediates on behalf of that same father with his heavenly father.

Erikson's spirit lives on in the same tension found in "Amadeus," where Mozart confronts his father's same brand of wrath--suspecting that his son is wasting himself in something unproductive and immoral.

Erickson probably is speculating, in the manner of an archaelogist, when he broods about what Young Man Luther may have witnessed around the house in his violent father's relationship with his mother.

Psychiatrists need this kind of book. Taking on the really big personalities helps them understand the rest of us. Helps them use all the gears on the 18-speed; lets them press all the buttons they will never need to service the only vital end of the market for shrink services: the troubled youth market, the only one with the cash to invest in the counseling arts. Before you're too far gone for anyone to care about.

Perhaps it also helps the rest of us to escape, to focus on something we don't know much about, and aren't very good at: but to be satisfied anyway. Ibn Khaldun said that was a particular affliction of academics. That's the good news: if you can't bear this book, maybe you're a really talented academic with a bright future. The rest of us are just reading it in an attempt to find meaning in our latest airplane flight. We're developing a fear of facing the pilot on the way out, since he's such an imposing father figure. Then we realize he's repeating cheesy little "good byes" and our confidence returns--he's not challenging us at all, he's one of us. Amen.

An example of why "psycho-history" is dead.......2000-05-17

Granted, Erikson's book makes for a great read, but lacks any real credibility. This book, along with his book on Gandhi, demonstrate that one can read anything into people when seperated by time and space. Take everything you read with a grain of salt. There are many more Luther bios that are more accurate and useful.

Perfect for the first year graduate student.......2000-02-06

Erickson's work is intelligently written and is perfect for stimulating the first year history graduate student towards broadening his or her thoughts on history and historical figures. That said, the work is also a tedious read that at times is little more than a pedantic stream of the author's consciousness. In the end, one does not really feel that much has been learned about the inner life of Luther, or about his time and place. A worthy work to be sure, but certainly also a minor one of limited value.

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like life- bits and pieces

Vital Involvement in Old Age
Erik H. Erikson , Joan M. Erikson , and Helen Q. Kivnick
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 039331216X

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like life- bits and pieces.......2006-08-25

This is a fascinating combination of two aged giants in developmental theory, Joan and Erik Erikson, together (as is fitting with the aged authors) a geronotologist. Like old age, it is a combination of memories of more solid, middle aged times and theories, and loose ends of current life. The stories from Berkeley seniors seems to be planted with a history- much like our lives as old people are current harvest of today and much filled memories. I found it surprizing that like my old life, new accomodations are found. In particular, the number of people interacting with dead spouses I found a welcome secret.
We can keep our old firm 50s era "science" and certainty, as yet combine with our aged experience and whimsy.

Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence

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psychological perspective
Gandhi's Truth . . . plus 300 pages of other stuff
This text reviews the historical presence of Gandhi in India

Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence
Erik H. Erikson
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393310345

Customer Reviews:

psychological perspective.......2002-05-03

you might want to read this book for his concept of psychosocial development of stages. but if you want to know about Gandhi, go find a different book.

Gandhi's Truth . . . plus 300 pages of other stuff.......2000-08-21

Gandhi's Truth is a psychoanalysis on Gandhi performed by the famed psychologist Erik Erikson. Although the psychoanalysis is done after Gandhi's death by a man who's never met him, I still think it could've been done effectively.

Unfortunately, Mr. Erikson spends half of the book going over himself. Why he wants to analyze Gandhi, how Gandhi is really very similar to Freud, and various ruminations on the inherent problems of getting to know the "other." Another quarter of the book is simply wasted on senseless words. Mr. Erikson seems to have real trouble using one word when thirty will do. The portion of the book that actually talks about Gandhi is solid and enjoyable. Too bad it makes up such a small portion of the book.

I have not read other books about Gandhi. Specifically, I haven't read his autobiography. Maybe it's just really dificult to get solid information on this incredibly famous man. Maybe Erikson included the sum of what was known about Gandhi in his work. Somehow, I doubt it.

I find Gandhi to be fascinating and I'm very interested in learning more about this impressive man. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong book to start with.

This text reviews the historical presence of Gandhi in India.......2000-06-24

I found this book very interesting, as well as culturally diverse. It gave me a whole new perspective into a world much different from my own. I learned that Mahatma Gandhi has profoundly influenced leaders that have been involved in nonvoilent liberation movements, such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.. I now have a deep admiration for this abstruse, insightful man because Gandhi beleived that truth is always essential in the political arena. "Gandhi's Truth" is an introduction to the challenges of poverty, religious difference, and ethnic tensions we all must accept and try to deal with as we head into the everchanging 21st century. I strongly recommend this book to anyone involved in or wishing to study politics. Happy Reading!

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integrated historical, psychological and political theories

The Erik Erikson Reader

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 039332091X

Book Description

Erik H. Erikson is recognized as one of the world's leading figures in the field of psychoanalysis and human development. His ideas about the stages of development, the sources of identity, and the interdependence of individual growth and historical change revolutionized our understanding of the nature and course of psychological growth. Erikson, whose work first described the now familiar concepts of "identity crisis" and "life cycle," provided an unprecedented framework for considering the individual psyche within society and culture. Unveiling a dynamic process of psychological development, he emphasized the tendency toward growth and the integration of multiple influences--the biological, social, psychological, cultural, and historical. With writings from Erikson's entire career, including major work from Childhood and Society, Insight and Responsibility, Young Man Luther, and Gandhi's Truth, this invaluable reader charts the influence of Erikson's thinking in the areas of child psychology, development through the lifespan, leadership, and moral growth.

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integrated historical, psychological and political theories .......2005-09-30

Erik Erikson (1902-1994), famous German-American psychotherapist, was born in Frankfurt, his biological father was a Dane remained unnamed, his mother, Karla Abrahamsen, was a young Jewish woman, who married three years after Erik's birth Dr. Theodor Homberger.
During the Nazi period the family emigrated to the USA, where Erik indicated the surname "Erikson" (chosen freely) for the immigration authority. Because his parents at first hid the biological identity from young Erik, at first he had felt as Erik Abrahamsen-Homberger; the modification into the well sounding "Erik Erikson" was (of course) connected with the search for his biological (unsolved, Danish) "Roots".
His books about "identity crisis", "life circles", about "Childhood and Society" and so on: practice an analysis of both common and personal interest. His own curriculum vitae is an example of developing an identity as well as the subjects he tried to describe (Luther, Hitler, Gandhi ...);
Not only, that in his childhood (in Nuernberg) his Jewish identity was hidden completely (favored by a fair-haired outside) in the Nazi Germany; at first it was his aim in his student time of becoming an artist. He slept under bridges, walking through Europe. Later he always tended more towards the psychological knowledge area, could be trained to a Montessori teacher, influenced by his friend Peter Blos, then (in Vienna) he managed to get a psychoanalysis by the famous daughter of Sigmund Freud, Anna; after that (emigrated to the USA) he started with ethnological researches at the Dakota Indians: so his own identity changed gradually in the course of his life.
The geographical changes surely also caused a personality alteration: In Vienna he became acquainted with his later wife Joan Serson, a Canadian dance teacher; avoiding the Nazis, the family went to Copenhagen (searching for roots), then to Boston. He finally took lectureships for the University of Harvard, then Yale, then Berkeley.
In the fifties he developed disgust of the McCarthy era and let rest his teaching for several years.
His remark "Identity is the intersection point between what a person wants to be and what the world allows to be" is more than only illustrated by the changeable outside worlds in Erikson's biography.
It is worthwhile to look at his additional publications (after his major work "Identity and the Life Cycle"), too:
he analyses Hitler, Gorki and the conditions of life of the Sioux Indian tribe "Oglala Dakota" ( in "Childhood and Society"). For his book "Gandhis truth" he got the Pulitzer Price.
Focusing the interdependence of individual growth and historical change (Young Man Luther, A Study in Psychoanalysis and History) he was the important founder of multiple-method-search-procedures for integrated historical, psychological, social and political theories.
The question of the development of identity therefore is Erikson's main topic, which is experienced at his own body
- essentially for everyone, who likes to analyse biographies ...

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A Clinician's Guide to Trauma
The best book for treating trauma
Excellent! A Consise and well written training manual.
Gold Amongst a Littered Field

Tools for Transforming Trauma
Robert Schwarz
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1583913416

Book Description

Among the many challenges faced by therapists today is the treatment of trauma and abuse. Based upon a framework that integrates a wide range of therapeutic theories of PTSD and techniques, including Ericksonian, solution-oriented and hypnotherapeutic approaches,Tools for Transforming Trauma provides clinicians with specific skills for treating traumatized individuals.

Detailed, how-to instructions and rationales for the implementation of over 30 "tools" throughout the different phases of treatment make this book an ideal resource for anyone working with trauma, abuse, and dissociative disorders.

In this unique intergration of approaches, Dr. Schwarz provides the reader with tools for transforming trauma in diverse areas such as affect dysregulation, ego strengthening, transforming negative memories, the false memory controversy, working with beliefs, cultivating a positive life, energy work, spirituality, and managing the therapeutic relationship during the process of healing.

Customer Reviews:

A Clinician's Guide to Trauma.......2005-05-27

Dr. Robert Schwarz is a healer, a teacher, and a multi-dimensional writer. He has found the words and the techniques to guide the therapist in healing the trauma client. This invaluable text is both brilliant in content, readable, clear, and direct. I recommend it!

The best book for treating trauma.......2005-01-06

Tools for Transforming Trauma is the best book I've read on understanding and treating trauma. Dr. Schwarz does a great job in both explaining and integrating the two most crucial issues in this field. The book helps the reader understand the psychological, neurological, and social nature and ramification of trauma in ways that make the many complexities completely comprehensible. It also, and most importantly, provides step-by-step blueprints of the most innovative and powerful tools for change. These include Ericksonian, Neo-Ericksonian, Energy psychology, and other strategies with careful illumination of how to choose, fine-tune, individualize, and use the strategies in each phase of the treatment process. It's clear that Dr. Schwarz is a seasoned and creative therapist who has taken his years of experience and training and put it into language that makes sense to those of us in the trenches.

Excellent! A Consise and well written training manual........2004-12-02

This book is a must have for anyone in the trauma field. It provides clear, step by step guidelines and demonstrations for some of the most powerful techniques for bringing people to healing. It integrates a multitude of techniques and provides the modern therapist with a toolbox of options to utilize dependent upon the specificaitons of the situation. Dr. Schwarz' 20 years of running conferences and training thousands of the best therapists in the country clearly shows in his careful delivery of every technique presented. Bravo! I eagerly await his next book and utilize his self help tapes with my clients on a regular basis.

Gold Amongst a Littered Field.......2003-02-20

There are so many books in the trauma field it is hard to know which one to invest precious time reading. I highly recommend this book, for several reasons: 1) it is clearly written in a down-to-earth style, 2) it provides an integrated framework for understanding and working with various experiences of trauma, 3) it offers specific tools for helping people overcome the effects of trauma.

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