Erik Erikson – The Eight Ages of the Self

Identity, crisis, and the lifelong journey of becoming.

A fair-haired boy of about ten stands outside his school in Karlsruhe, Germany, clutching his satchel and fighting back tears. It is the early 1910s, and young Erik Homburger – not yet Erik Erikson – has just endured another confusing day of taunts. At his Jewish temple school, his classmates sneered that he looked too Aryan, calling him goy, an outsider, because of his blue eyes and blond hair. But in the neighborhood streets, other children chased and mocked him with anti-Semitic slurs, seeing only that he was being raised in a Jewish household. Erik doesn’t know where he belongs; he feels he doesn’t fully fit in either world. That evening, after dinner, he screws up the courage to ask the question that has been haunting him: “Mother, why am I so different?” His mother, Karla, pauses, then takes a deep breath. It is time to tell the truth she has hidden for so long.

Selenius Media & Niklas S Osterman