Erik Erikson
Erikson’s Impact on Counselling
Venessa Brown
Tremaine Gordon
Veronique Beckford – Scott
Andrea Jackson- Wiggan
Shelly- Ann Campbell
Content
• Background– Biography– Introduction
• Contributions– Writing– Theories– Psychosocial
Development
• Impact– Ego & Identity– Choices
• References
Background: Biography
• Erik Homburger Erikson (1902-1994)
• Heavy influence on our psychological understanding of the young.
• Some identity crises of his own may have sparked his interest in study
• Born June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany by Danish parents.
• Married in 1930, to Joan MowatSerson, who studied education, arts and crafts, and writing.
Introduction
• While Freud’s theory had focused on the
psychosexual aspects of development, Erikson’s
addition of other influences helped to broaden and
expand psychoanalytic theory. He also contributed to
our understanding of personality as it is developed
and shaped over the course of the lifespan.
• Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory attempts to
explain changes that occur in social relationships and
self-understanding. Erikson seeks to do this by
describing the relationship between psychological,
biological, and societal development and its
connection with a person's relationship to their own
society .
Contributions: Written Works• Childhood and Society (1950)• Young Man Luther. A Study in Psychoanalysis and
History (1958) • Insight and Responsibility (1964) A collection of 6 essays• Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968)• Gandhi's Truth: On the Origin of Militant Nonviolence
(1969)• Adulthood (edited book, 1978)• Vital Involvement in Old Age (with J.M. Erikson and H.
Kivnick, 1986)• The Life Cycle Completed (with J.M. Erikson, 1987)
Contributions: Theories (concept of self)
• Main task of the adolescent is achieve a state of Identity• Identity is a state towards which one strives• When various aspects of self-concept are in agreement• In choosing an identity, we repudiate (give up) other
choices
Contributions: Theories
• In democratic society, where many choices exist, society plays a role in development.
• In adolescence, we experiment with many choices, searching for those that suit us, without considering responsibility for any particular one.
• Adolescent tolerance of the ambiguity of indecision, and avoiding making too quick a choice of identity leads to a better sense of self, and a stronger development.
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
As a pioneer in the study of the life cycle, Mr. Erikson
saw it consisting of these eight crucial stages.
CONTRIBUTION TO DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES
• Erikson's influence, compounded by clinical studies
of children, a teaching post at Harvard University,
popular lectures and best-selling books on Mohandas
K. Gandhi and Martin Luther, pervaded many layers
of society, from education to medicine to law to
biography to psychiatry to lowbrow culture.
• His popular recognition reached a peak in the 70's,
particularly because of his identification with the
development of "identity crisis," a term he coined.
But his scholarly contributions have assured him of a
place of eminence in many disciplines.
• Erikson suggesting that the ego and the sense of
identity are shaped over the entire life span and that
experiences later in life might help heal the hurts of
early childhood. In counseling the counselors try to
understand the patients earlier years so as to help
them to transition from one stage to another
successfully.
EGO & IDENTITY
IMPACT: CHOICES
• We can apply the theory in situations where an individual seems stuck between stages, or searching to move to earlier or later stages out of sequence.
• If choices have not been fully made, a return to those
stages may be predicted.
REFERENCES
• Studer, J. R. (2006). Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Stages Applied to Supervision. Guidance & Counseling, 21(3), 168-173.
• Erik Erikson. (2011). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1.
• Weiland, S. (1993). Erik Erikson: Ages, stages, and stories. Generations, 17(2), 17.
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