The Two Ericksons: Forgotten Concepts and what Constitutes an Appropriate Professional Knowledge Base in Psychiatry.

T here could not be two men more different; Erik Erikson, European émigré, psychologist, child psychoanalyst and Milton Erickson, Wisconsin farmer’s son, struck down by polio in his young age, choosing medicine as a default career. They would both rise to fame in their lifetimes; Milton Erickson credited as the foremost authority of his day onmedical hypnosis whereas Erik Erikson, with his stages of psychosocial development, rivaling and completing Freud’s misguided theory of psychosexual development. The European Erikson’s name became synonymous with concepts such as the identity crisis, adolescence as amoratoriumperiod and ego psychology. The American Erickson was hailed as father of brief therapy, solution focused therapy, neurolinguistic programming and Jay Haley’s family therapy school of strategic therapy. Yet amazingly, the uniting thread was that both men were speaking about psychosocial and family development throughout the life cycle long before these notions became popularized either in professional circles or with the lay public.