Copilărie şi societate

Erik H. Erikson asks how raising children links growth to social life. He uses psychoanalysis, which looks at deep drives and feelings. He pairs it with field studies of how groups live. He draws on Freud’s theory of sex in childhood. He applies it to ways people raise their children. The book deals with the mind and how people grow. It is for readers drawn to childhood, identity, and life in groups.

The book has four parts. The first starts with cases from clinical work. These concern a young child and a sailor in wartime distress. Erikson then looks at sex in childhood and desire. He also looks at aggression and how the body grows.

The second part compares how the Sioux and Yurok raise children. Erikson links these ways to each group’s past and beliefs. He also shows how they fit each group’s way of life.

The third part looks at how the ego grows. It deals with play, work, healing, and the roots of identity. Erikson sets out eight stages that span a whole life. They cover trust and autonomy, or acting for oneself. They include initiative, or taking the lead, and competence, or skill. Identity, or a sense of who one is, comes next. Intimacy means close bonds with others. Generativity means care for those who come after us. Ego integrity means a sense that one’s life has been whole. Each stage brings a conflict. These range from mistrust early on to despair late in life.

The last part looks at youth and identity in North America. It also studies the minds of Hitler as a child and Maxim Gorki as a youth. The book ends with a look at anxiety.

Erikson trained with Anna Freud in Vienna. He became a Harvard professor emeritus, a rank held after retirement. His work included studies of the minds of figures from history.

Mirela Badea and Brandusa Popa translated this edition. It includes thoughts from 1985. It also has prefaces to the first two editions.