Erik Erikson Essay

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Erik Erikson: Post-Freudian Theory. From the Beginning to the End of His Life Denise Tamanika Duggins July 15, 2010 Psychology ~ 344 Abstract Erik Erikson life began in Germany on June 15, 1902. Erikson life was very uncommon. His childhood was very confusing for him. He married and had children with one of his peers from Anna Freud Psychoanalytic Institute. His education was not like many other personality theorist, he did not attend a traditional college. He was not like many other psychoanalysis, Erikson desired to expand Freud’s theory of the model of the mind. Erikson believed that at every stage of life there are psychosocial struggles that help to form the personality in a person. He developed eight stages of psychosocial development. These stages do not contain information about personal traits or motivations. Erikson was a psychoanalysis theorist, who developed the term identity crisis. Due to his lack of medical or scientific education, his theory is viewed as an ethical theory rather than a scientific theory. Today Erikson’s stages are still in use by many educators, scientist and medical personal. On June 15, 1902, in Frankfurt, Germany, Erik Salomonsen was born to his mother Karla Abrahamsen and her husband Waldemar Isidor Salomonsen. This was not his biological father. In 1904, his mother remarried a pediatrician name Theodor Homburger. In 1909, Erik Salomonsen became Erik Homburger. His childhood was very challenging; he learned that his father was not really his biological father. He was teased by his peers for looking different then the other Jewish children he went to school with. As a youth, Erikson was a student and teacher of art. While teaching at a private school in Vienna, Erikson met Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud. Anna Freud became his employer as well as his psychoanalyst. Erikson enjoyed being psychoanalyzed and
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