Essay about Erik Erikson and Post-Freudian Theory

Erik Erikson was born in 1902 near Frankfort, Germany to an unmarried Jewish mother. He was raised in an artists colony by his mother and eventually he would have his pediatrician as a stepfather, however, Erikson would seek his biological father’s identity throughout his life. (Capps, Mother, melancholia, and humor in Erik H. Eriksons earliest writings, 2008). In 1929, Erikson began psychoanalysis with Anna Freud and in 1933, he and his wife and children emigrated first to Denmark and then to the United States (Capps, Mother, melancholia, and humor in Erik H. Eriksons earliest writings, 2008). In the United States, Erikson would change jobs many times, taking research positions at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Harvard…show more content…Successful resolution of the problems presented in each stage was, to Erikson, the path to a mature personality. The conflict to be resolved in each lifecycle is reminiscent of a virtue or a vice, which Erikson described as weaknesses. (Hoare, 2009) Conn uses Erikson’s conflicts to illustrate the formation of ethics (Conn, 1977).