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.