Erik Erikson and the American Psyche Ego, Ethics, and Evolution

Erik Erikson and the American Psyche is an intellectual biography that explores Erikson's contributions to the study of infancy, childhood, and ethical development in light of ego psychology, object-relations theory, Lacanian theory, and other major trends in psychoanalysis. It analyzes Erikson's famous portraits of Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus, Erikson's own ambiguous religious identity in the context of his anguished childhood and adolescence, and his repeated emphasis on the need for strong intergenerational bonds to ensure mental health throughout the life cycle. Given Erikson's persistent efforts to harmonize psychoanalysis with history and the human sciences, Daniel Burston interprets Erikson's invention of psychohistory as a "pseudoschism" that enabled Erikson to throw off the stifling constraints of Freudian orthodoxy, disclosing the personal and intellectual tensions that prevailed between Erikson and many leaders of the International Psychoanalytic Association. This book demonstrates the enduring relevance of Erikson's unique perspective on human development to our increasingly screen-saturated, drug-addled postmodern-or "posthuman"-culture, and the ways in which his posthumous neglect foreshadows the possible death of psychoanalysis in North America. Book jacket.

Daniel Burston, he chairs the Department of Psychology at Duquesne University