Paper Topic:

Erik Erikson, Psychoanalyst

Running Head : ERIK ERIKSON : PSYCHOANALYST

Erik Erikson : Psychoanalyst (Name (College (Professor (Subject

Abstract

If often took real material out of their own lives to use as part of their fiction , the same thing can be said for other professions where certainly , life 's experiences provide the necessary influence and jump-off point for the formulation of not only masterpieces of literature , but of fundamental truths about the nature of human life as well . Such is the life and work of famed Danish psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson whose connections to a more

well-known practitioner of psychology , Sigmund Freud was more than just enlarging on what Freud had discovered with his seminal work on the unconscious and of psychoanalysis . Erikson 's own beginnings echoed themes he would later explore in his work themes that would touch on conflicts and redemption

Erik Erikson : Psychoanalyst

If often took real material out of their own lives to use as part of their fiction , the same thing can be said for other professions where certainly , life 's experiences provide the necessary influence and jump-off point for the formulation of not only masterpieces of literature , but of fundamental truths about the nature of human life as well

Such is the life and work of famed Danish psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson whose connections to a more well-known practitioner of psychology , Sigmund Freud was more than just enlarging on what Freud had discovered with his seminal work on the unconscious and of psychoanalysis . As typical of the inter-connections between his life and the psychological theories that he pursued , Erikson had actually met Freud 's daughter Anna while teaching in Vienna . He underwent psychoanalysis and later trained for the treatment which convinced him that psychology and psychoanalysis were to be his missions in life

But even as Erikson agreed with the basic tenets of Freudian theory , he disagreed with some of the fundamental principles that Freud established with regards to human development . It was Freud 's belief that human personality is already set by the age of five while Erikson in his seminal work , Identity and the Life Cycle , developed and proposed eight psychosocial stages that humans encounter throughout their life

The concept of these psychosocial stages was simple- human personality traits come in opposites or dualities we can be independent or dependent , reckless or responsible , loving or uncaring . While most of these traits were basically inborn , others which often prove to play significant influences in our lives seem to be learned based on environmental influences . This further exploration of Freud 's concept of the human ego and of behaviors came from Erikson 's expansive studies of Sioux Indians on a reservation land

In Cole 's The Erik Erikson Reader (2000 , these studies on the massive influence and impact of culture on behavior is explored in depth with intriguingly insightful selections from Erikson 's Childhood and Society which was published in 1950 . The focus on one of the selections was the Oglala subtribe of the Sioux , studies...

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