Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson
Erik Hamburger Eriksonwas a German-born American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T. Erikson, is a noted American sociologist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth15 June 1902
CityFrankfurt, Germany
CountryUnited States of America
judging lines likes
Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.
generations abandoned sequence
Mans true taproots are nourished in the sequence of generations, and he loses his taproots in disrupted developmental time, not in abandoned localities.
responsibility caring self
These same experiences make of the sequence of life cycles a generational cycle, irrevocably binding each generation to those that gave it life and to those for whose life it is responsible. Thus, reconciling lifelong generativity and stagnation involves the elder in a review of his or her own years of active responsibility for nurturing the next generations, and also in an integration of earlier-life experiences of caring and of self-concern in relation to previous generations.
opportunity expression liberty
The American feels too rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them.
children successful reality
The growing child must derive a vitalizing sense of reality from the awareness that his individual way of mastering experience (his ego synthesis) is a successful variant of a group identity and is in accord with its space-time and life plan.
anticipation life-is ifs
If life is to be sustained, hope must remain...
being-strong responsibility cycle-of-life
If there is any responsibility in the cycle of life it must be that one generation owes to the next that strength by which it can come to face ultimate concerns in its own way.
destiny personality
Personality, too, is destiny.
brother doubt shame
Doubt is the brother of shame.
tragedy facts life-is
The fact that human conscience remains partially infantile throughout life is the core of human tragedy.
children reality playing-outside
The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.
life death children
Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.
children mistake accomplishment
Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom.
healing self play
Play is the most natural method of self-healing that childhood affords.