BOOKS
459
traditional psychoanalytic focus on the vicissitudes of drives and
conflicts and the cognitive and developmental psychological points
of views.
I assume that the invitation to lead off this series, along with
Anna Freud, was meaningful to Erikson, whose standing as a
psychoanalytic theoretician within the profession remains am–
biguous . Even so, it is unclear why he chose to extend that essay and
publish it separately as a monograph, the one here under review. As
he himself remarks". . . to restate at such length what theoretical
considerations one has advanced in a lifetime and in a variety of
data-filled contexts may seem to be an unrewarding task both to
writer and reader alike." Because the monograph is a summary, it
cannot be examined without reference to his overall contributions .
Erikson's achievements are many and well known. They in–
clude his recognition that psychoanalysis must be integrated with the
social sciences, his attempt at the formulation of an epigenetic
development of the ego, his extension of the stages of development
throughout the life cycle with particular emphasis on the importance
of adolescent development, his concepts of identity formation and
identity diffusion, and his insight into the meaning of play and toys
and their significance for child analysis .
Yet any overall appraisal of Erikson's contributions is inherently
difficult because of their breadth, imaginativeness, and unevenness.
Erikson's reputation in popular culture is largely undiminished: he is
the acknowledged progenitor of psychohistory; his work on toys and
play is frequently cited in the child analytic literature; and he is the
source of the current preoccupation with adult stages and normative
life crises. Moreover, he has popularized a number of developmental
issues that have become part of the vocabulary of every educated
person ("moratorium" and "identity crisis," for example). Yet his
work has remained largely evocative, informed by the precise detail
and the intuitive leap while failing to transform insight into a logically
convincing argument or coherent theoretical statement. As a conse–
quence, his reputation in the psychoanalytic community has sub–
stantially declined .
Nonetheless, it seems that Erikson sees himself as a major
psychoanalytic theorist and wishes to be remembered as such. Judg–
ing him in this light, one must look closely at both his scheme of
psychosocial development and his concepts about identity forma–
tion, since it is with these that his reputation as a theorist will
ultimately stand or fall.
