Erik Erikson is classified to be among the most influential psychoanalysts of all time. He was born in 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany. He entered the field of psychoanalysis in the 1920s with Anna Freud, daughter to the founder of psychianalysis, Sigmund Freud. They both studied in Vienna at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, and Erik graduated from there in 1933. That same year, he emigrated to the United States and changed his real name, Erik Homburger, to Erik Homburger Erikson. Once in America, Erik studied child psychoanalysis in Boston, and he later joined the Harvard Medical School faculty. In 1936, he moved to Yale University, and he began his first studies of cultural influences on psychological development in 1938 by working with Sioux Indian children and later with the Yurok Indians. He later taught at University of California- Berkeley. He left in 1950 after refusing to sign a loyalty oath. From 1960 through 1970, he was a professor at Harvard University. Erickson made many contributions to the study psychoanalysis. His works include Children and Society (1950), Young Man Luther (1958), Ghandi's Truth (1969), and Life History and the Historical Movement (1975). He was also the one who introduced the term and concept of "identity crisis". But his major contribution to the study of psychoanalysis came when he introduced his theory of eight psychosocial stages in developmental psychology from the time of infancy to the time of adulthood.
The first of the eight psychosocial stages are during infancy, from the time you were born to around the time you are age 1. This stage is identified as trust v. mistrust. In the first years of life, babies are very unaware of what is going on in their environment. They cannot do anything for themselves or for others. They also do not have the judgement of knowing who or what is bad or who or what is good. Because of this, infants must depend on others to care for them, to give them what they warmth, to show them affection, etc.
