Erik erikson biography articles

Erik Homburger Erikson Frankfurt am Main, Germany, June 15, Harwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States, May 12, , registered at birth as Erik Salomonsen , was a German-American psychologist and psychoanalyst of Jewish origin recognized worldwide, among other areas, for his contributions to developmental psychology. His theories about the identity crisis of adolescence —and its corresponding impact on the personality of the individual—, as well as his proposal that the main neurosis that affected the United States after the world war was narcissism, they became very popular in the s and s.

A survey, published in the Review of General Psychology in , ranked Erikson as the twelfth most eminent psychologist of the century XX. Its origin is shrouded in a certain mystery. His biological father was an unknown Dane who left his wife just after Erik was born. Her mother, Karla Abrahamsen, a young Danish woman of Jewish origin, raised her son alone for the first three years of her life.

She then married Dr. Theodor Homberger, who was the boy's pediatrician, and together they moved to Karlsruhe, southern Germany.

What did erik erikson study

After finishing high school, Erik decided to be an artist. When he wasn't attending art classes, he wandered around Europe, visiting museums and sleeping under bridges. He lived a careless rebel life for a long time, just before seriously considering what to do with his life.