Joan Erikson

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Joan Mowat Erikson (born June 27, 1903 in Brockville , Ontario , Canada as Sarah Lucretia Serson , † August 3, 1997 in Brewster , Massachusetts , United States ) was a Canadian-American educator, dance scholar , art therapist and author. She achieved international recognition through her work on the scientific work of her husband, the psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson .

life and work

youth

Joan Erikson was the youngest of the three children of Marie Louisa Serson, b. MacDonald, and the Reverend of the Anglican Communion John Reaby Serson. After the early death of the father (1912) the mother moved to Trenton , New Jersey with the older children Charles and Mary (Molly) . Joan stayed in the family's previous home, Gananoque, Ontario, under the care of a grandmother. She didn't like the middle name "Lucretia" and changed it to "Mowat". She later also changed her first name, first to "Sally" and finally to "Joan". After graduation, she went to Barnard College in New York City , where she earned a bachelor's degree as an educator. She completed her master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania in sociology . Joan Erikson's particular interest was expressive dance . She was planning a doctoral thesis on dance education and went to Germany to collect information and material there.

In autumn 1929 she came to Vienna , where she studied at the Hellerau-Laxenburg dance school. In Vienna she also underwent psychoanalysis with Ludwig Jekels , which, however, soon turned into a disaster and filled her with great skepticism towards this teaching. At the end of 1929 she was introduced to Erik Homburger (= Erik Erikson) at a carnival ball and a little later entered into a love affair with him. After becoming pregnant in the spring of 1931, the couple married.

Middle years of life

Since her husband was Jewish and the family was not happy about the mixed denominational connection, Joan Mowat Homburger, as she was now called, formally confessed to Judaism , but in fact did not give up her ties to the Anglican community. A son, Kai Theodor, who later became a sociologist, was born on December 2, 1931. Joan's reservations about the classical psychoanalytic method became more pronounced as she met Anna Freud , during whom Erik underwent a training analysis . Later she particularly criticized Anna Freud's position that even the creativity of children and adolescents should be subjected to psychoanalysis. Erik received increasingly strong stimuli from her skepticism, and Joan's reservations became the starting point for the independent teaching he later developed.

In 1933 the second son, Jon McDonald, was born and Erik passed his final exams at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society . The family went to Denmark, where Erik hoped to restore his Danish citizenship. When this attempt failed, Joan, who wanted to bring her family to safety from the rising National Socialism , pushed for a move to the United States. In the fall of 1933, the Homburgers met in New York City and then settled in Boston, where Erik continued his studies at Harvard . In 1936 they moved to New Haven , where Erik took up research and teaching at Yale University .

In 1938 their daughter Sue was born. The following year, 1939, the family moved again, now to Berkeley , where Erik worked at UC Berkeley . In 1939 the family took American citizenship and chose the new family name "Erikson". In 1944 Joan gave birth to a fourth child, Neil, who had Down syndrome . The Eriksons decided to put the child in a home and hide his existence.

The years in Berkeley were the culmination of Erik and Joan Erikson's academic career. Working closely together, they devised and developed the step model of psychosocial development during this time , and it is difficult to say which of the two contributed what. Erik Erikson later expressly admitted that he could not distinguish his own share from his wife's. It was in Berkeley that Joan found arts and crafts , especially jewelry and weaving. Later, in 1969, she published a book about making jewelry from artificial pearls .

In 1951 the Eriksons moved to Stockbridge , Massachusetts, where Erik practiced as a doctor at the Austen Riggs Center. Joan took over the management of the art therapy program in this psychiatric model clinic , which included drama, dance, painting, sculpture, woodworking, gardening and music. She was convinced that art has the same healing power as conventional psychotherapeutic methods. In addition, she founded a Montessori kindergarten , where clinic staff and local families could raise their children.

Later years of life

In 1970 the Eriksons moved again to the San Francisco Bay Area , now to Tiburon . Joan accepted an offer to lead a similar arts therapy program at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco as she had previously at the Austen Riggs Center.

1982 originated in Cambridge , as an institution of Cambridge Hospital and Harvard Medical School, the Erik H. and Joan M. Erikson Center , which served as a training and research facility. The Eriksons, who had only used Cambridge as a secondary base in recent years, finally settled there in 1987. Erik had been teaching at Harvard since 1969 and had been emeritus there since 1970 . From 1987 the Eriksons offered joint courses at the Erikson Center.

Erik Erikson died in 1994. On the basis of his notes and her own ideas, Joan then continued his work; she identified and described a 9th phase of life in the very old age, which was marked by decline in health, dependence, loss and social isolation; At the same time, however, she emphasized that aging also means liberation. This conception was published posthumously in an extended new edition of Erik's book The life cycle completed (1998).

Joan Erikson spent her last lifetime in a nursing home near Cambridge. After her death in 1997, she found her final resting place with her husband in the First Congregational Church Cemetery in Harwich, Massachusetts.

Publications

German translations of Joan Erikson's books are still not available.

  • Mata ni pachedi; a book on the temple cloth of the Mother Goddess . National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad 1968.
  • The universal bead . Norton, New York 1969.
  • Saint Francis and his four ladies . Norton, New York 1970.
  • with David Loveless, Joan Loveless: Activity, recovery, growth: the communal role of planned activities . Norton, New York 1976 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • with Erik Erikson, Helen Kivnick: Vital involvement in old age . Norton, New York 1986 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Wisdom and the senses: the way of creativity . Norton, New York 1988 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Legacies: Prometheus, Orpheus, Socrates . Norton, New York 1993.

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d Daniel Benveniste: Erik H. Erikson: An OutsiderAt the Center of Things. (PDF) (No longer available online.) P. 5 , archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on September 16, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / internationalpsychoanalysis.net
  2. ↑ Rev.John Reaby Serson. Retrieved September 16, 2016 (Genealogy website).
  3. ^ A b c Lawrence Jacob Friedman: Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1999, ISBN 0-674-00437-X , pp. 82 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ^ Daniel Burston: Erik Erikson and the American Psyche: Ego, Ethics, and Evolution . Jason Aronson, Lanham et al. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-7657-0494-8 , pp. 15 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ Lawrence Jacob Friedman: Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1999, ISBN 0-674-00437-X , pp. 83 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Paul Roazen: Erik H. Erikson: The Power and Limits of a Vision . Jason Aronson, Northvale NJ / London 1997, ISBN 0-7657-0094-8 , pp. 7th f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Mary Catherine Bateson: Composing a Life . Grove / Atlantic, New York NY 1989, ISBN 978-0-8021-9631-6 , pp. 37 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ Kai Erikson. In: Yale University website. Retrieved September 17, 2016 .
  9. ^ Lawrence Jacob Friedman: Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1999, ISBN 0-674-00437-X , pp. 87 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  10. ↑ Erik Erikson. Retrieved September 18, 2016 .
  11. ^ Daniel Burston: Erik Erikson and the American Psyche: Ego, Ethics, and Evolution . Jason Aronson, Lanham et al. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-7657-0494-8 , pp. 19 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ^ Elsie Jones-Smith: Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach . Sage, Los Angeles et al. a. 2012, ISBN 978-1-4129-1004-0 , pp. 61 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  13. ↑ Erik Erikson. Retrieved September 19, 2016 (Harvard University website).
  14. ^ Eugene Taylor: The Mystery of Personality: A History of Psychodynamic Theories . Springer, Dordrecht a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-0-387-98103-1 , pp. 121 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ^ Lawrence Jacob Friedman: Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1999, ISBN 0-674-00437-X , pp. 208 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  16. ^ A b Elizabeth A. Brennan, Elizabeth C. Clarage: Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners . Oryx Press, Phoenix AZ 1999, ISBN 1-57356-111-8 , pp. 258 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  17. ↑ Elliott Robert Barkan (Ed.): Making it in America: A Sourcebook on Eminent Ethnic Americans . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara CA u. a. 2001, ISBN 1-57607-098-0 , pp. 113 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  18. ↑ Monica McGoldrick, Randy Gerson, Sueli Petry: Genograms: Assessment and Intervention . 3. Edition. WW Norton, New York / London 2008, ISBN 978-0-393-70509-6 , pp. 193 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  19. ^ Rémi Sussan: L'intelligence collective à petite échelle. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .
  20. ↑ a b c d Robert McG. Thomas Jr .: Joan Erikson Is Dead at 95; Shapened Thought on Life Cycles . In: The New York Times . August 8, 1997 ( nytimes.com ).
  21. ^ A b Daniel Burston: Erik Erikson and the American Psyche: Ego, Ethics, and Evolution . Jason Aronson, Lanham et al. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-7657-0494-8 , pp. 38 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  22. ↑ Alice J. Wexler: Art and Disability: The Social and Political Struggles Facing Education . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-349-37358-1 , pp. 21 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  23. ^ Judith Wallerstein: Joan Erikson - In Memoriam. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .
  24. ^ A b Lawrence Jacob Friedman: Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1999, ISBN 0-674-00437-X , pp. 464 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Erikson, Joan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Erikson, Joan Mowat; Serson, Sarah Lucretia (maiden name); Serson, Sarah Mowat (with self-chosen middle name); Serson, Sally Mowat (with self-chosen first names); Serson, Joan Mowat (with self-chosen first name); Homburger, Joan Mowat (through marriage, before naturalization in the USA)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian-American educator
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH near Brockville , Ontario, Canada
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 1997
Place of death Brewster , Massachusetts, USA