Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Erikson, whose work first described the now familiar concepts of "identity crisis" and "life cycle," provided an unprecedented framework for considering the individual psyche within society and culture. Unveiling a dynamic process of psychological development, he emphasized the tendency toward growth and the integration of multiple influences--the biological, social, psychological, cultural, and historical.



With writings from Erikson's entire career, including major work from Childhood and Society, Insight and Responsibility, Young Man Luther, and Gandhi's Truth, this invaluable reader charts the influence of Erikson's thinking in the areas of child psychology, development through the lifespan, leadership, and moral growth.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 11)
• I. On Children: Nearby and Far Away (p. 21)
• "Hunters Across the Prairie" from Childhood and Society (p. 27)
• "Fishermen Along a Salmon River" from Childhood and Society (p. 71)
• "A Neurological Crisis in a Small Boy: Sam" from Childhood and Society (p. 89)
• "Toys and Reasons" from Childhood and Society (p. 101)
• II. On Psychoanalysis and Human Development (p. 133)
• "The First Psychoanalyst" from Insight and Responsibility (p. 139)
• "The Nature of Clinical Evidence" from Insight and Responsibility (p. 162)
• "Human Strength and the Cycle of Generations" from Insight and Responsibility (p. 188)
• III. On Leaders (p. 227)
• "The Legend of Maxim Gorky's Youth" from Childhood and Society (p. 233)
• "The Fit in the Choir" from Young Man Luther (p. 270)
• "The Meaning of 'Meaning It'" from Young Man Luther (p. 295)
• "Epilogue" from Young Man Luther (p. 347)
• "The Perspective of the Mount" from Dimensions of a New Identity (p. 364)
• "Protean President" from Dimensions of a New Identity (p. 372)
• "Homo Religiosus" from Gandhi's Truth (p. 388)
• "The Instrument" from Gandhi's Truth (p. 401)
• "March to the Sea" from Gandhi's Truth (p. 428)
• IV. On Moral Matters (p. 435)
• From "Beyond Anxiety" from Childhood and Society (p. 443)
• "The Golden Rule in the Light of New Insight" from Insight and Responsibility (p. 445)
• "The Galilean Sayings and the Sense of 'I'" from The Yale Review (p. 465)
• Notes (p. 505)
• Index (p. 517)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Booklist Review

Like Erikson, Coles has explored human psychology in many genres; his works include a respected biography of Erikson and, here, editing Erikson's major works into a collection offering nonprofessional readers a sense of the concerns that this Dane-turned-American psychoanalyst explored. Coles groups excerpts from five of Erikson's books (Childhood and Society, Insight and Responsibility, Young Man Luther, Dimensions of a New Identity, and Gandhi's Truth), along with his Yale Review article, "The Galilean Sayings and the Sense of 'I,'" into four sections, covering childhood, leaders, morality, and psychoanalysis and human development. A student of Sigmund Freud (and analysand of his daughter Anna), Erikson studied the experience of childhood in different societies, and drew on history and biography, as well as psychoanalysis, in exploring how individuals find their way to an adult identity and moral responsibility. Whether describing the Oglala Sioux of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, or the Pacific Northwest's Yurok people, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther, or Mahatma Gandhi, Erikson offers lucid analysis and thoughtful theorizing. Appropriate for most libraries. --Mary Carroll

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Erik H. Erikson, a German-born American psychologist and psychoanalyst, developed theories about the sequence of human development that have had an impact on clinical psychoanalysis, ethics, history, literature, child care, and the emerging interdisciplinary study of the life course. Erikson was an art student, but after undergoing psychoanalysis by Anna Freud in Vienna in 1927, he turned to the field of psychology.

According to Erikson's life-cycle theory, first published in Childhood and Society (1950), there are eight developmental stages, which are biologically determined but environmentally shaped: infancy, early childhood, play age, school age, adolescence, young adulthood, mature adulthood, and old age. Each of these stages is associated with a particular crisis that the individual must successfully resolve in order to proceed normally to the next stage-for example, identity versus confusion in adolescence. The concept of the identity crisis is now firmly embedded in psychiatric theory. Erikson also studied the relationship between a person's life and the times in which he or she lives; and his historical-biographical studies of Luther and Gandhi are outstanding products of this inquiry.

Erikson taught at Harvard University for 30 years

(Bowker Author Biography)