0.11 Erik erikson  (Page 5/26)

In 1949, Erikson was appointed as a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Within a year, however, as McCarthyism gripped America, Erikson refused to sign a loyalty oath. Erikson protested publicly, his statement was read at conferences and published in the journal Psychiatry . He was not a communist, and had never had any interest in communism, but he felt that signing the oath would have made him a hypocrite, as well as being a betrayal of junior colleagues who had refused to sign the oath and were promptly dismissed. Although the tenure committee recommended that he be allowed to remain at the University of California, due in large part to the dismissal of junior colleagues, Erikson resigned his position. He was quickly offered a position at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts (Coles, 1970; Friedman, 1999).

Erikson was something of a celebrity in Stockbridge. He spent 10 years in Stockbridge, during which he published Young Man Luther (Erikson, 1958), an historical/psychoanalytic biography that brought together two of Erikson’s academic strengths, and that brought him a certain amount of acclaim. He also taught a graduate seminar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, using Young Man Luther as a model for the course. He was subsequently offered a professorship at Harvard, but not without some controversy. One of the faculty who protested Erikson’s appointment, claiming that he came at too high a price (literally), was David McClelland. Others supported Erikson, and he was eventually appointed as a professor with no particular department. It proved to be a good decision. Erikson used his influence and personal connections to invite renowned guest speakers, ranging from pediatrician Benjamin Spock to anthropologist Margaret Mead and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. He inspired students such as Howard Gardner, Carol Gilligan, and future congressman, senator, and Vice President of the United States Albert Gore, Jr. (Gore wrote a biography of his father for Erikson’s class). Erikson also continued his interest in historical biography with the publication of Gandhi’s Truth (Erikson, 1969), following a 3-month visit to India in 1962/1963. Gandhi’s Truth won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Always afraid that he would not be recognized for his accomplishments, Erikson hoped that he would also win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he was disappointed when it did not happen (Bloland, 2005; Coles, 1970; Friedman, 1999).

Erikson retired in 1970, and he and Joan returned to California. Erikson continued writing for a number of years, focusing on issues related to personality changes that accompany old age. Eventually, however, time began to catch up with him. In 1987, as his health deteriorated, he and Joan returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to live with two young professors who could help Joan care for her husband. He died in 1994 (Bloland, 2005; Coles, 1970; Friedman, 1999).

Joan Erikson missed her husband terribly, but managed to spend some time on her own writing. She wrote several chapters that were added as an addendum to The Life Cycle Completed , in which she proposed a ninth stage of development (Erikson&Erikson, 1997). She spoke to their daughter Sue regularly as Sue followed her father’s footsteps and became a psychoanalyst. Sue Erikson Bloland was deeply concerned, however, since Lawrence Friedman was about to publish his biography on Erikson, which included extensive coverage of the Erikson’s son Neil. Fortunately, perhaps, Joan Erikson died in 1997, and never had to face the public reaction to Friedman’s biography (Bloland, 2005).