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In a presentation on erikson's identity concept at a panel at the December 1994 meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association devoted to a reevaluation of Erikson's life work, I tried to clarify the paradox that I feel his presence in our ranks has always posed for us. In his lifetime Erikson was undoubtedly the psychoanalyst best known, most deeply esteemed, and most widely influential in the socio-historical surround of the whole world culture. His books, particularly the first, seminal Childhood and Society (Erikson, 1950), but also his Luther (1958) and Gandhi (1969) biographies, and from amongst all the others, his Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968), have, from their publication and continuing essentially unabated today, been core curricula in university courses on human development, on the life cycle, and on psychological perspectives in history and biography across the nation. And during the student rebellions of the 60s, Erikson became, unasked, a rallying cry, almost an icon, and very much a cult figure of almost mythic proportions.
Yet, despite an impact on our culture and our intellectual life greater than that of any analyst since Freud, here is the paradox: despite the initial tremendous excitement brought into psychoanalytic