ABSTRACT
Erik Erikson, artist and psychoanalyst, employed his creative, and clinical-theoretical talents in the service of constructing a portrait of psychological development across the life span (Erikson, 1959, 1982) (Figure 9.1). My students, colleagues and I have worked for a number of years to develop measures of these stages of psychosocial development (Bradley, 1992, 1997; Bradley et al., 1990; Hearn, 1993; Hearn et al., 1997; Kowaz and Marcia, 1991; Marcia et al., 1993; Orlofsky et al., 1973) (see Figure 9.2). In this chapter, I would like to join Erikson’s theory and our empirical research within the context of Henrik Ibsen’s witty, fantastic, and, yet, psychologically trenchant verse play, Peer Gynt, which he based upon a folk tale of his native Norway.
