The Life Cycle Completed: A Review

This text is based on an long introduction which the National Institute of Mental Health asked the author to contribute for "The Course of Life: Psychoanalytical Contributions Toward Understanding Personality Development". It places Erikson's famous theories - the identity crisis, the interdependence of history and life history, the life cycle, and the concept that maturity is not the end of psychological growth - in their historical and autobiographical contexts.