A Way of Looking at Things: Selected Papers From 1930 to 1980 by Erik H. Erikson, edited by Stephen Schlein (Norton: $24.95; 782 pp, illustrated)

In an address to the Harvard Medical School class of 1972, Erik Erikson spoke of the physician as a mediator, as “one who thinks about the center of things,” and seeks to “restore balance.” “A Way of Looking at Things” reveals Erikson himself--artist, child analyst, teacher, theorist--in this central and conciliatory role. Mediating between the very private dreams and memories, fears and aspirations of his patients and other individuals, and the social and historical forces with which their lives are inextricably bound, he has indeed characterized a broad and suggestive way of looking at things.

The breadth and depth of Erikson’s vision is amply evident in this volume of previously uncollected essays, book introductions, speeches, personal and professional testimonials. Different versions of several of these essays have been previously published in other collections; others are being brought to light in book form for the first time. They have been organized thematically and detail Erikson’s various clinical and theoretical preoccupations over the last 50 years: among them, his responses to the horror of Nazi Germany and his earliest clinical work with children, as well as the relationship between his early life as an artist and his profession as psychoanalyst. Some of these essays, such as the brief memoir of Anna Freud (Erikson’s original training analyst), are moving in their simplicity and give the reader a vivid sense of the fabric of Erikson’s personal and professional life. Others, like his early studies of the Yurok and Sioux Indians, provide insight into Erikson’s initial efforts to bring the knowledge made available by psychoanalysis to bear on studies of culture, and vice versa.

Erikson is generally known for his comprehensive theory of the eight stages of the human life cycle, for his attention to the vicissitudes of identity formation, and for his biographies of Gandhi and Martin Luther. What these essays make abundantly clear is the unrestricted curiosity, keen powers of observation and ethical integrity that have fueled those books and theoretical constructions. One has only to read his moving portrayals of his clinical work with children to discern those qualities. And his disdain for those who would construct theories without having their feet firmly planted in what is observable. Of child analyst Melanie Klein, he writes, “her efforts to reconstruct earliest psychic development where it is least approachable” led to interpretations in her work with children that were “fairy tales stripped of all artistry.” (A strong statement coming from one who was not entirely averse to making his own imaginative leaps.)

In fact, although he is idealistic as to the potential benefits of psychoanalysis in its various applications, Erikson deeply resents the simplistic (and often punitive) use to which some people (clinicians among them) can put such knowledge. This is strikingly evident in a statement he made to the Joint Committee on Post-War Planning on the possible contribution that psychoanalytic insight could make to understanding and rehabilitating a Germany that had run amok. With characteristic directness, he wrote: “What impresses me in some formulations is their daydreamish totalitarian character. On occasion, I discern wolf Goebbels himself in psychiatric clothing.”

Such resounding “no’s” to oversimplification and unearned theorizing are matched by Erikson’s embrace of the complexity and variability of this life. Perhaps more than any other psychological theorist-clinician of his time, he has succeeded in closing the arbitrary gap between personal and social history, between individual and collective dreams and fears. Yet, what these essays make quite clear is that, in spite of his efforts to mediate, for all his questions and observations, Erikson is able to acknowledge and appreciate the mystery that is always at the outer edge of our understanding of ourselves. In a lovely essay at the close of this volume, he voices that sense of wonder while addressing the technological feat that set two men on the moon:

“Around the time of the moon landing, we held a newborn grandson in our arms. I could not help thinking that every time a child is born, there is potentially the greatest week since creation, and the seven seas and the outer spaces pale before its message.”

Ultimately, this diverse collection of essays reveals Erikson’s preoccupation with the questions given form by another artist, Gauguin, in his Tahitian tryptic: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?