Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a German American psychoanalyst and developmental psychologist who believed that personality is shaped much more by the child’s relationship with his or her parents than by instincts and sexuality, and it develops through a series of psychosocial stages progressing from infancy to old age. Robert B. Ewen, An Introduction to Theories of Personality, 6th ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003).
