Erik Homberger Erikson was born on June 15, 1902, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. His parents were both Danish. His father was Protestant and mother Jewish. They had separated before his birth, and he was born when his mother was visiting friends in Germany.
Erikson’s mother, Karla Abrahamsen, stayed with her son in Karlsruhe, an old capital of a Lutheran principality in Germany. When he was three years old, she married the child’s pediatrician, Dr. Theodor Homberger, a Jew. Erikson’s parents were very loving; his mother was bookish and artistic but sad, his stepfather kind and professionally respected. He did not know as a child that Dr. Homberger was not his real father. This adoption by his stepfather was crucial in setting a lifelong pattern in Erikson’s life. All along in his life, he got himself adopted by some kind man or the other.
Erikson attended the Humanistiche Gymnasium in Karlsruhe. He studied Greek, Latin, philosophy, literature and science. During this period, he had an alienated adolescence. His German classmates teased him for being a Jew, and his Jewish peers rejected him as a gentile because of his Nordic physical features.
Erikson completed his schooling at the age of 18. He was not at all interested in formal study and decided not to join any university. His primary interest was art, and he spent time travelling about the German countryside reading, drawing, and making woodcarvings. He returned home after a year and tried formal art study, first in Karlsruhe and then in Munich. At 21, Erikson went to Florence and continued to study art informally. Here he struck friendship with his old schoolmate Peter Blos, who later became famous as a writer and child psychoanalyst.
In 1927, when Erikson was 25, Peter Blos invited him over to Vienna to become an art teacher at a psychoanalytically enlightened school for children started by Dorothy Burlingham and Anna Freud. Here, he also got to meet Sigmund Freud.
Blos had to work hard to turn him into a disciplined worker. As Erikson later recalled "To make a teacher of me……the highly disciplined Peter first had to teach me to keep regular hours, a task which was initiated every morning, no matter what time of the year, by a cold shower, then the preferred treatment for identity confusion". He also obtained a certificate from the Maria Montessori School as one of the few men with a membership in the Montessori Lehrerinnen Verein. This marked the end of his aimless adolescence.
Erikson had doubts about himself, and he once told Anna Freud that he could not see a place for his artistic inclinations there in the high intellectual endeavors. Anna Freud quietly said, "You might help to make them see". Erikson now turned his roving artist’s eye from the observation of nature to the psychoanalytic observation of children’s play. This convergence of the artistic and the theoretical is seen in all his work. In his first articles, he applied psychoanalytic thinking to educational themes.
In Vienna, Erikson met Joan Serson, a Canadian-born, American-trained woman with a Masters degree in Sociology, and a special interest in modern dance and psychoanalysis. He married her, and she joined the same school as an English teacher. Her skills as a writer, and her interest in sociology, psychoanalysis and education, made her Erikson’s closest collaborator. They had two sons while at Vienna, and a daughter was born to them later in the USA.
Erikson completed his training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933 and became a full-fledged psychoanalyst. This was the time when fascism was growing to menacing proportions. The apprehensive Eriksons seriously considered migrating to Copenhagen and opening a psychoanalytic training centre there. Erikson planned to regain his Danish citizenship but could not do so. It was at this juncture that they got an invitation from Hans Sachs, a disciple of Freud, to come to Boston. The Eriksons moved to Boston in 1933.
Erikson was the first child psychoanalyst in Boston. He joined the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, and became a part of the research team working on personality under the leadership of Henry Murray, Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic. It was Murray’s book Explorations in Personality : A Clinical and Experimental Study of Fifty Men of College Age that inspired him to do a biographical study of Sigmund Freud, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. He also met anthropologists like Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Gregory Bateson, and their influence is quite obvious in his work.
Erikson moved to the Institute of Human Relations of the department of psychiatry at Yale University in 1936. He worked on the questions of ego development, and his research focused upon the concepts of social modalities and children’s spatial play behaviour. Two years later he went on a research expedition with Scudder Mekeel to study the Sioux Indians in South Dakota. The plan was to apply the clinical approach to anthropological studies of individuals within their sociocultural group. He observed children and child-rearing practices on the Pine Ridge reservation and published a paper Observations on Sioux Education.
In 1939, Erik Homberger renamed himself Erikson, retaining Homberger as his middle name. With this stroke of genius, he was able to solve the problem of his paternity – at the age of 37, he had adopted himself.
Erikson shifted to San Francisco in 1939 and started his clinical practice. From 1939 to 1944, he participated in the longitudinal Child Guidance Study of the University of California in which he studied the sex differences in children’s play construction, conflict resolutions in various phases of man’s life cycles and cultural anthropological inquiries into child development. He taught at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, the University of California, and the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, during the next six years.
Erikson was with the University of California, Berkeley for a decade. He conducted a cross-cultural study of Yurok Indians of northern California with the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. When World War II started, he contributed to the war effort with his articles on submarine habitation and the interrogation of the prisoners of war. He also wrote the first psychobiographical essays on Adolph Hitler and the psychosocial dynamics of his appeal to young Germans. His Hitler’s Imagery and German Youth was published in 1942.
Erikson was offered professorship at the University of California, but he had to quit before the year was up. The activities of Senator Joe McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activities became a dangerous force to reckon with in the University campuses. Professors were being forced to sign loyalty oaths to establish their anticommunist credentials. Erikson refused to do so and he was fired for being one of the few non-signers. Later, he was reinstated as politically dependable, but he resigned because others who had been fired for the same reason were not taken back.
That very year Robert Knight left the Menninger Clinic to become the director of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He had known Erikson at the Menninger Clinic, and he offered him a position at the Austen Riggs Center, which was devoted to the psychoanalytic treatment and research of severely disturbed adolescents and young adults. Erikson resigned his professorship with Berkeley in 1950 and accepted the offer. Erikson spent the next decade at the Austen Riggs Center working with young patients. This work helped him crystallize the ideas of identity formation and identity confusion.
The year 1950 also saw the publication of his magnum opus Childhood and Society. Now Erikson’s fame was no longer confined within the four walls of the academia. His perceptive observations and radical ideas on human psychological development and the eight-stage life cycle model enthralled every person who was interested in man as a subject. He was also chosen to contribute to the Mid-century White House Conference.
Erikson brought out his major works in the last four decades of his life. He ventured into psychoanalytic biography on a much grander scale with his psychohistory classics Young Man Luther and Gandhi’s Truth. His other major works include Identity and the Life Cycle, Insight and Responsibility, Identity: Youth and Crisis, Dimensions of a New Identity, Life History and the Historical Moment, The Life Cycle Completed: A Review, and Vital Involvement in Old Age with co-authors Joan Erikson and Helen Q. Kivnick. All his books deal with the human life cycle as expounded by him and the problems of identity lurking therein, and how public events and private acts are inextricably linked.
In 1959, he joined the Center for Advanced Studies of the Behavioural Sciences, Palo Alto, California. He was appointed as Professor of Human Development at Harvard University the next year. He taught a very popular course on the human life cycle. He stayed here until his retirement in1970.
The Eriksons returned to the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Both worked at Mt. Zion Hospital. Again after 10 years, they shifted to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Finally, in 1981, he undertook with Joan Erikson and Helen Kivnick an intensive study of 29 octogenarians. These people were the parents of children studied in the Guidance Study at the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley. The results of this research were published in Vital Involvement in Old Age.
After leading a full and fulfilling life for 92 years, Erik Homberger Erikson breathed his last on May 12, 1994 at Harwich, Massachusetts. His wife, Joan Erikson, died in 1997.
Erik Homberger Erikson, one of the greatest psychoanalysts of this century, brought about a revolutionary paradigm shift in the study of man and society. He put an end to the reductionism of psychologists who see an individual as developing in isolation driven solely by biological forces, as also to the view of sociologists who exclude the individual in their emphasis on social interaction. He did this not by rejecting these perspectives, but through synthesis of the two. This synthesis enabled him to create an elegant theory, simple yet grand, which accounted for the development of man as a biological individual, and also as an interacting member of society, affecting and affected by it. His psychosocial perspective provides insight into the interlocking of individual lives with the crises and challenges of society. It tells us how both biology and society set the limits within which the individual has to develop. This allows us to understand the maladies of the individual as well as the society, and it is this understanding that gives us optimism in our search for solutions.
1902
Born on June 15, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.
1905
When three years old, mother remarried.
1921
Completed schooling at Humanistiche Gymnasium in Karlsruhe.
Went out traveling about the German countryside.
1922
Returned home after a year and tried formal study of art in Karlsruhe.
1923
Went to Florence and continued to study art informally.
Renewed friendship with his old schoolmate Peter Blos.
1927
Went to Vienna to become an art teacher at Burlingham’s school.
Trained as a Montessori teacher.
Joined the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute for psychoanalytic training
1930
Wrote his first paper Psychoanalysis and the Future of Education in German
1933
Completed his training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute.
Moved to Boston and joined the faculty of the Harvard Medical School
1936
Moved to the Institute of Human Relations of the department of psychiatry at Yale University.
1938
Went on a research expedition to study the Sioux Indians in the Pine Ridge reservation, South Dakota.
1939
Published a paper Observations on Sioux Education.
Renamed himself Erikson, retaining Homberger as his middle name.
Shifted to San Francisco and started his clinical practice.
Joined the longitudinal Child Guidance Study of the University of California.
1942
Became a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Published Hitler’s Imagery and German Youth
1950
Resigned after refusing to sign an anti-communist loyalty oath required by the University.
Published Childhood and Society
Chosen to contribute to the Mid-century White House Conference
1951
Joined the Austen Riggs Center at Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
1956
Delivered the Goethe Centenary Address at Frankfurt in honor of Sigmund Freud’s one hundredth birthday.
1958
Published Young Man Luther: A study in psychoanalysis and history
1959
Published Identity and the Life Cycle.
Joined the Center for Advanced Studies of the Behavioural Sciences, Palo Alto, California.
1960
Appointed Professor of Human Development at Harvard University
1962
Visited India for the first time
1964
Published Insight and Responsibility
1966
The Erikson Institute for graduate programmes in child development founded in Chicago.
1968
Published Identity: Youth and Crisis
1969
Published Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origin of Militant Nonviolence
1970
Retired from Harvard.
Returned to the San Francisco Bay Area of California.
1973
Published In Search of Common Ground with co-authors Huey P. Newton and Kai T. Erikson
1974
Published Dimensions of a New Identity
1975
Published Life History and the Historical Moment
1977
Published Toys and Reasons
1981
Undertook with Joan Erikson and Helen Kivnick intensive study of 29 octogenarian parents of children scrutinized in the Guidance Study at the Institute of Human Development, Berkeley
1982
Published The Life Cycle Completed: A Review
1986
Published Vital Involvement in Old Age with co-authors Joan Erikson and Helen Q. Kivnick.
Erik Homberger Erikson Haus, a public child psychiatric facility founded in Karlsruhe
1989
A Way of Looking at Things, a collection of papers edited by Stephen Schlein published
1994
Died on May 12, at Harwich, Massachusetts.
The major breakthrough in Erikson’s conception of life cycle development is in the fact that he stressed upon the social and historical reality in which development occurs. He asserted that behaviour has to be seen in the social context. He shifted focus on to the psychosocial aspects of development, and brought in ethical perspectives into psychology. According to him, development of personality continues throughout life, in eight stages, each stage having inherent dichotomies that need to be resolved.
THE HUMAN LIFE CYCLE
Erikson's bio-psycho-social model states that development functions by the epigenetic principle and is a lifelong process. According to this principle, development is genetically programmed and is determined by the interaction of biological, psychological and cultural influences. There is an unfolding of personality in eight stages. The progress through each stage is determined by the degree of success in all the previous stages.
Each stage has a certain developmental task or crisis. This crisis is psychosocial in nature and has to be mastered. Each crisis is referred to by two aspects, one positive and the other negative. The infant's crisis, for example, is called 'trust-mistrust'. Each of the stages has a certain optimal time, and it is no use trying to rush children through it, nor is it possible to slow the pace.
The proper resolution of each stage involves the creation of the right balance of the positive and the negative, and this results in the development of a virtue. A virtue is a psychosocial strength specific to each stage and it helps us through the rest of the stages of our lives. If the resolution goes wrong it leads to maladaptations and malignancies, and endangers future development. In maladaptation the positive trait is in excess and there is too little of the negative trait, e.g. a person who trusts too much. In malignancy there is too little of the positive and too much of the negative aspect of the task, e.g. a person who can’t trust others.
Stage I, Oral Sensory, Birth to 18 months
Psychosocial Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust
Significant Relations: Mother
Virtue developed: Hope and faith
Identity forming elements: Temporal perspective vs. Time confusion
The task in the stage of infancy is to develop trust without eliminating the capacity for mistrust. If the mother responds to the needs of the infant in a consistent and timely manner, the child is not overly upset by the need to wait for the satisfaction of his needs. The child will develop the feeling that the world is a safe place, and people are reliable and loving.
The infant whose parents are overly protective develops sensory maladjustments. He cannot believe anyone would mean harm, and he ends up becoming overly trusting, even gullible. The infant whose needs have not been met will develop mistrust and will be suspicious of people. He will develop the malignant tendency of withdrawal characterized by depression, paranoia, and possibly psychosis. If the proper balance is achieved, the child will develop the virtue of hope. Even when things seem to be going wrong he will have optimism. This ability gets him through disappointments in love, career and other aspects in later life.
Stage II, Muscular-anal, 18 months to 3 years
Psychosocial Crisis: Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt
Significant Relations: Parents
Virtue developed: Will and determination
Identity forming elements: Self-certainty vs. Self-consciousness
The task of the toddler is to achieve autonomy, and to minimize shame and doubt. The child develops a sense of independence, self-control and self-esteem when he is permitted to explore and manipulate his environment. If not allowed to explore, the child will doubt his abilities and feel deeply ashamed. He will give up, assuming he cannot and should not act on his own. Even trying to help children do what they should learn to do for themselves, such as tying shoe-laces, leads to shame and doubt.
Some amount of doubt and shame is inevitable and beneficial. Its absence is a maladaption leading to impulsiveness. It makes the person get into activities without proper consideration of abilities. Excess of shame and doubt makes a person feel that mistakes have to be avoided at all costs and he develops the malignancy of compulsiveness. A proper balance of autonomy and shame leads to the virtue of will power or determination. This determination, when appropriately balanced with modesty, is a major contributor to success as an adult.
Stage III, Locomotor-genital, 3 years to 5 years
Psychosocial Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt
Significant Relations: Family
Virtue developed: Purpose and courage
Identity forming elements: Role experimentation vs. Role fixation
The task of the preschooler is to learn initiative without too much guilt. The fantasy, curiosity and imagination of the child should be encouraged because he is now capable of visualizing the future. This helps to develop initiative, the attempt to make the non-reality a reality. With the ability to make plans for the future also comes the feeling of being responsible for actions, the capacity for moral judgement and hence, the feelings of guilt.
The maladaptive tendency of too much initiative and too little guilt leads to ruthlessness, which in its extreme form is sociopathy. The person in his zeal to attain the goal has absolutely no concern for others. Too much guilt leads to the malignancy of inhibition. The inhibited person does not try anything because that way he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about anything. This may even become the cause of sexual impotence or frigidity. An appropriate balance of the two traits leads to the virtue of purpose or courage, the capacity for action in spite of being aware of one’s own limitations.
Stage IV, Latency, 5 years to 13 years
Psychosocial Crisis: Industry vs. Inferiority
Significant Relations: Neighborhood and school
Virtue developed: Competence
Identity forming elements: Apprenticeship vs. Work paralysis
Social order elements: Technological
Psychopathology: Creative inhibition, Inertia
The task of the school-age child is developing a capacity for industry, and avoiding a sense of inadequacy and inferiority. With encouragement from parents and teachers, he begins to work hard to acquire new skills and learns to enjoy success. If harsh teachers, rejecting peers, and also racism and sexism in the society limit the chances of success, the child develops a sense of inferiority or incompetence.
Too much industry leads to narrow virtuosity. This maladaption is seen in child actors, child musicians, and other child prodigies. These children end up having an empty life with only one area of competence. Excess of inferiority complex leads to inertia. A person in this malignant situation becomes inert and never ever tries anything. The virtue developed in this stage is competence consisting mostly of industry with a bit of inferiority to keep the person sensibly humble.
Stage V, Adolescence, 13 years to 21 years
Psychosocial Crisis: Identity vs. Role confusion
Significant Relations: Peer groups and Role models
Virtue developed: Fidelity
Identity forming elements: Identity vs. Identity confusion
The psychosocial task in this stage is to achieve ego identity and avoid role confusion. The integration of all the knowledge of himself and the external world helps the adolescent develop a unified self-image. This self-image should help him see how and where he fits in the society. This awareness of oneself and one’s place in the society is ego identity. The presence of good role models in the mainstream adult culture and open channels of communication facilitates this. Most primitive and traditional societies provide rites of passage, such as hunting a symbolic animal or performing a symbolic ceremony, to achieve this. In the absence of such rites in modern society, the adolescent is befuddled by role confusion and he faces an identity crisis. Erikson suggests psychosocial moratorium - taking a little time out to figure out things for themselves.
The ego identity of a person involved in a particular role in a subculture may be so strong and sharp that he becomes intolerant of others. This maladaptive tendency is fanaticism. At the other extreme is the malignant tendency of repudiation. The adolescent compensates for the lack of identity by allowing himself to be fused with some antisocial cult or group, and this now provides him with an identity. Successful resolution of this stage leads to the virtue of fidelity, the ability to sustain loyalties in spite of the imperfections and inconsistencies of the value systems of the society. This is possible only with a sense of identity and belonging.
Stage VI, Young Adulthood, 21 years to 40 years
Psychosocial Crisis: Intimacy vs. Isolation
Significant Relations: Partners and friends
Virtue developed: Love
Identity forming elements: Sexual polarization vs. Bisexual confusion
Social order elements: Cooperation and competition
The task in early adulthood is developing intimacy, and not remaining in isolation. Intimacy is the ability to be close to a friend or a lover. There is no fear of losing identity. Fear of commitment is a sign of immaturity. A person prefers isolation when he is not assured of an independent identity.
Promiscuity is the maladaptive tendency to become intimate too easily, and without any depth. The malignant tendency is that of exclusion, isolating oneself from love, friendship and community. The resolution of this stage leads to the virtue of love, the ability to put aside differences through mutuality of devotion.
Stage VII, Middle Adulthood, 40 years to 60 years
Psychosocial Crisis: Generativity vs. Stagnation
Significant Relations: Household and workmates
Virtue developed: Care
Identity forming elements: Leadership and followership vs. Abdication of responsibility
Social order elements: Currents of education and Tradition
The psychosocial task in this period involves striking a balance between generativity and stagnation. Generativity implies contributing to the future not only by bringing up children but also by creating and imparting skills to the next generation. It also assures the person of not having become redundant. The love showered upon others in this phase is not expected to be reciprocated. Stagnation refers to the self-absorption, which makes the person non-productive.
Excessive generativity leads to overextension leaving no time for relaxation, and this leads to deterioration in productivity of the time spent in working. At the other extreme is rejectivity in which there is no generativity and too much of stagnation. This is the stage when midlife crisis occurs. In order to make up for the lost opportunities and to get over the fear of getting older, people in this stage often try to recapture their youth quitting their jobs, wearing hip clothes, and even leaving their spouses. Successful resolution of this stage develops the virtue of care, and one achieves a role with authority and responsibility.
Stage VIII, Maturity, 60 years to death
Psychosocial Crisis: Integrity vs. Despair
Significant Relations: Mankind
Virtue developed: Wisdom
Identity forming elements: Ideological commitment vs. Confusion of values
Social order elements: Wisdom
Psychopathology: Extreme alienation, Despair
The task of late adulthood, when most people retire from work, is to develop ego integrity with minimal despair. Due to physical decline, the concerns of death no longer remain distant. Ego integrity refers to coming to terms with life as it has been lived and not fearing the impending death.
Presumption is a maladaptation in which a person presumes ego integrity without actually facing the difficulties of old age. Disdain is a malignancy of this stage and it means contempt of life. The virtue one should strive for in this period is wisdom. Wisdom enables one to approach death without fear. This is a gift to children because they will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.
Interaction between Generations
The influence of parents on the child’s development has always been known. But Erikson pointed out the influence of children on their parents’ development, and he called this interaction of generations mutuality. The arrival of children moves the new parents along their developmental paths. Mutuality is particularly obvious in the problems of the teenage mother. The mother still has to resolve the tasks of adolescence, and the infant needs a mother with mature abilities. If the mother’s parents step in to help, then they are also forced out of their normal developmental track.
Significance of Erikson’s Work
Erikson has given a new direction to the treatment of psychological maladies. Psychological symptoms are no longer believed to be just the result of a traumatic past. Present conflicts are considered to be equally important. Therefore, psychological interpretation and psychotherapy should not only include reconstruction of the past, but also the person's struggles with current developmental tasks.
Erikson’s psychosocial model of the human life cycle has given the psychologists and the social scientists a powerful tool to study man and his society without compartmentalizing the two. It integrates individual and social psychology.
Stage VIII, Maturity, 60 years to death
Psychosocial Crisis: Integrity vs. Despair
Significant Relations: Mankind
Virtue developed: Wisdom
Identity forming elements: Ideological commitment vs. Confusion of values
Social order elements: Wisdom
Psychopathology: Extreme alienation, Despair
The task of late adulthood, when most people retire from work, is to develop ego integrity with minimal despair. Due to physical decline, the concerns of death no longer remain distant. Ego integrity refers to coming to terms with life as it has been lived and not fearing the impending death.
Presumption is a maladaptation in which a person presumes ego integrity without actually facing the difficulties of old age. Disdain is a malignancy of this stage and it means contempt of life. The virtue one should strive for in this period is wisdom. Wisdom enables one to approach death without fear. This is a gift to children because they will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.
Interaction between Generations
The influence of parents on the child’s development has always been known. But Erikson pointed out the influence of children on their parents’ development, and he called this interaction of generations mutuality. The arrival of children moves the new parents along their developmental paths. Mutuality is particularly obvious in the problems of the teenage mother. The mother still has to resolve the tasks of adolescence, and the infant needs a mother with mature abilities. If the mother’s parents step in to help, then they are also forced out of their normal developmental track.
Significance of Erikson’s Work
Erikson has given a new direction to the treatment of psychological maladies. Psychological symptoms are no longer believed to be just the result of a traumatic past. Present conflicts are considered to be equally important. Therefore, psychological interpretation and psychotherapy should not only include reconstruction of the past, but also the person's struggles with current developmental tasks.
Erikson’s psychosocial model of the human life cycle has given the psychologists and the social scientists a powerful tool to study man and his society without compartmentalizing the two. It integrates individual and social psychology.
"I am two years younger than the twentieth century, and I therefore can speak roughly of the decades of my life as coinciding with those of the calendar".
"I must concede that the first course in psychology I ever took was also the first (and the last) I flunked."
"I was an artist then, which is European euphemism for a young man with some talent but nowhere to go."
"Today we have to ask how can a society be created in which a number of symptoms can be prevented. Because once they are there, the chance of curing them is only a relative one. And furthermore, today psychiatry and psychoanalysis are supposed to cure the ills and evils of a society, which is not what they are made for."
"So I would apply psychoanalysis in a different way. I would try to learn from psychoanalysis how man develops and to learn to make some contribution, however small, to a future world in which the ethics of the way the generations are related to each other will take care of individuals in such a way that psychiatry is not necessary."
"In naming a series of basic balances on which the psycho-social health of a personality seems to depend, I found myself implying a latent universal value system which is based on the nature of human growth, the needs of the developing ego, and certain common elements in child training systems."
"The maturing organism continues to unfold, not by developing new organs, but by a prescribed sequence of locomotive, sensory, and social capacities."
"The same acts which help the baby to survive help the culture to survive in him."
"Growing is a differentiation of preplanned parts during a given sequence of critical periods. In personality growth, it is the task of the ego (in the psychoanalytic sense) and of the social process together to maintain that continuity which bridges the inescapable discontinuity between each of these stages."
"There is little that cannot be remedied later, there is much that can be prevented from happening at all."
"In order to make the world safer for democracy, we must make democracy safe for the healthy child."
"The ego......makes it possible for man to bind together the two great evolutionary developments, his inner life and his social planning."
"It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even longer childhood. Long childhood makes a technical and mental virtuoso out of man, but it also leaves a lifelong residue of emotional residue in him."
"The growing child must, at every step, 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."
"Development consists of a series of childhoods which call for a variety of sub-environments, depending on the stage which the child has reached and also depending on the environment experienced during previous stages."
"Children ‘fall apart’ repeatedly, and unlike Humpty Dumpty, grow together again."
"...the vulnerability of being newly born and the meekness of innocent needfulness have a power all of their own. Defenseless as babies are, there are mothers at their command, families to protect the mothers, societies to support the structure of families and traditions to give a cultural continuity to systems of tending and training."
" ...permits a mother to respond to the needs and demands of the baby's body and mind in such a way that he learns once and for all to trust her, to trust himself and to trust the world."
" ...when they become parent training rather than child training."
" ...must learn to will what can be, and to convince himself that he willed what had to be."
"...the small world of manageable toys is a harbor which the child establishes, to return to when he needs to overhaul his ego."
The child is faced with the universal crisis of turning from an "...attachment to his parents to the slow process of becoming a parent, a carrier of tradition."
" learns to exist in space and time as he learns to be an organism in the space-time of his culture. Every part function thus learned is based on some integration of all modes with one another and with the world image of their culture."
"Identity Consciousness then is a new edition of the original doubt, which concerned the trustworthiness of the training adults and the trustworthiness of the child himself - only that in adolescence, such self-conscious doubt concerns the reliability and reconcilability of the whole span of childhood which is now to be left behind."
" ...a desperate attempt at regaining some mastery in a situation in which available positive identity elements cancel each other out."
"Adolescents tend to be uncompromising in their prejudices and belligerently loyal to their own group's ideas and values. This being against something is one of their greatest needs, for through contrasting themselves and their ideas with an opposite group's, they firm up their sense of themselves."
"In the healthy adolescent, a great capacity for phantasy is matched by ego mechanisms that permit him to go far into dangerous regions of phantasy or social experiment and to catch himself at the last moment and divert himself in company, in activity, in literature or music."
" ...bewildering combination of shifting devotion and sudden perversity, sometimes more devotedly perverse, sometimes more perversely devoted."
"Ego-identity acquires its final strength in the meeting of mates whose ego-identity is complementary in some essential point and can be fused in marriage without the creation either of tradition, or of an incestuous sameness - both of which are apt to prejudice the offspring's ego development."
"Gandhi’s and Freud’s methods converge ……in both encounters only the militant probing of a vital issue by a nonviolent confrontation can bring to light what insight is ready on both sides."
"Healthy children will not fear life, if their parents have integrity enough not to fear death."
