Identity and Spiritual Development in the Papers of Erik Erikson

Abstract

This article explores the meaning of spirituality in adult identity development based on the published and unpublished writings of Erik Erikson. Erikson's unpublished Harvard University and related papers are the nucleus of this article, and his 120+ publications buttress that material. I situate Erikson as the trans-Freudian originator of the psychosocial identity construct who imported philosophical thought, poetic and ancient writings, and scripture into his theorizing. Explored is the trajectory that Erikson framed, that of the development of morality → ideology → aesthetics → mature ethics. Erikson framed the best of maturity in the ego identity of what he called the moral-ethical, spiritual human. This human is one with a horizontal, earthly identity and a vertical, transcendent identity.