New York City, late 1941. Afternoon light slants across a nearly empty avenue as a small patriotic parade marches by. A handful of Boy Scouts in ill-fitting uniforms carry a faded American flag; behind them a few veterans step in time. A lone flute plays a tune, slightly off-key, its thin notes echoing between brick apartment buildings. On the sidewalk stands a man in a rumpled suit, motionless among the sparse onlookers. Abraham Maslow has stopped on his drive home, compelled by curiosity or perhaps by something deeper. He can hear the distant sound of a radio broadcasting news of troop movements and victory gardens – reminders of the global conflict that has touched every life.

Niklas Osterman BHPRN, MA

Minneapolis, 1943. In the dim light of a basement laboratory, eight wooden boxes line the wall, each with a single restless pigeon inside. In one box, a white-feathered pigeon turns a slow circle to the left, again and again, its head bobbing in a curious dance. In another, a bird keeps pecking at the empty air, as if an invisible seed floats just out of reach. The room is hushed except for the whir of a fan and the occasional metallic click of a feeder mechanism. Every fifteen seconds, click—a hopper swings out in one of the boxes, delivering a few grains of food. The pigeon that had been turning in circles rushes to the hopper and gobbles the reward.

Niklas Osterman BHPRN, MA

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