Book
Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History
Erikson's study of the youth of Martin Luther, which its publisher presents as a psychobiography applying his ideas on human development and the identity crisis to the leading figure of the Protestant Reformation. It reads Luther's years of crisis in the monastery as a prolonged identity crisis and as a psychosocial moratorium, a period in which binding adult commitments are put off. It argues that the way Luther resolved this personal crisis became a turning point in the religious history of his age. By reading a leader's inner crisis together with the historical crisis of his time, the book became a founding work of psychohistory and psychobiography.
Main ideas
- Luther's years in the monastery are read as a prolonged identity crisis.
- The monastery served Luther as a psychosocial moratorium, a socially sanctioned delay of adult commitment in which an identity could be worked out.
- The resolution of Luther's personal crisis became a turning point in the religious history of his age.
- Psychoanalysis and history are joined: a leader's life history is read alongside the historical crisis of the time, the method later called psychohistory.
What it shows
Erik Erikson introduced Psychosocial moratorium
Erikson described adolescence as a moratorium between childhood and adulthood granted by society, and in Young Man Luther (1958) read Luther's years in the monastery as such a moratorium.
- 1958
Erik Erikson developed Psychohistory
Young Man Luther (1958) and Gandhi's Truth (1969) set the pattern for psychohistory, reading a leader's personal crises together with the historical crises of their time.