Term Paper on "Martin Luther & Psychoanalysis Young Man"

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Martin Luther & Psychoanalysis

Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History - Erik H. Erickson

Introduction to Erik Erikson

Before reviewing his book, it would seem appropriate to go into the life of author Eric H. Erikson, in order to get a glimpse into the author's motivations for writing the book. This book, after all, has two very powerful themes presented; the first is of course on the very famous historical figure and religious reformer, Martin Luther, whose name will be a big part of the history of the civilized world for centuries to come. And the other major theme in this book is psychoanalysis, for which the late Eric Erickson was a well-known practitioner and innovator.

Erikson was born June 15, 1902 near Frankfort Germany, and died on May 12, 1994, in the United States. According to information from the Psychology Department at Muskingum College in Ohio, Columbia University Press, and Wikipedia Encyclopedia, Erickson was born into a Jewish family as Erik Salomonsen, the son of Karla Abrahamsen and stockbroker Waldemar Isidor Salomonsen. However, there is evidence that Erikson was actually born as a result of his mother's extramarital affair, and reportedly that fact was not revealed to him until after his childhood. In fact, he stood out in the Jewish community because he was a tall, blond, blue-eyed young man, and was teased at school for looking more Nordic than Jewish.

These dynamics of his origins may well have stirred his lifelong interest in the social and psychological aspects of personality and identity. It may well have also stimulated an interest in Martin Luther, whose youth was rocked with controversy as well. In any event, Erikson attended art school in Germany and for several years taught art - and other subjects - in Vienna, to children of Americans who had traveled to Vienna to study Freudian psychology. He also trained in Vienna as a psychoanalyst under Anna Freud.

Erikson moved to the United States in 1933, changed his name, and taught at Harvard University, Yale, Berkeley and the Menninger Foundation. He wrote books and became known in the world of psychology for his theory of personality. He understood and accepted the basic tenets of Freudian theory, but he believed that Freud had perhaps misjudged certain dynamics in the development of personalities. His eight stages of development explain human beings through their lifetimes, while Freud's stages of development carried through adolescence.

Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History:

In his Preface (p. 8), Erikson acknowledges that "Sigmund Freud's monumental work is the rock on which..." Erikson's advanced theories are based. He does not openly challenge Freud, but writes that his theories on ego are rooted in - and go beyond - the work of Sigmund and Anna Freud, among others. In writing this book, Erikson wants the reader to understand that "whatever references are made..." To similarities in the life of Freud and the life of Martin Luther "...are not derived from any impression of a personal likeness" between the two individuals (p. 9). Both men displayed genius in their own field, and both had, Erikson writes, "a grim willingness to do the dirty work of their respective ages." What Erikson was struck by as he wrote the book and researched Luther and Freud, was that both of them "...kept human conscience in focus in an era of material and scientific expansion."

In reading his book, it is clear that Erikson set out to build a case for his own theories of the psychosocial development of youth (and older persons as well), and Erikson takes many pages up explaining his reasons for being intrigued with studying, in particular, the various crises that youths face in their path to maturity. This fact is constantly reinforced through his analysis of Luther's life and times, which is not a bad thing, but it is pertinent in this paper to mention that Erikson, in effect, seeks validation for his own developmental work through his interpretation and deep analysis of Luther's troubles, conflicts, and strengths, as well.

Erikson points out on page 21 that he recognizes the "dichotomy" of psychoanalysis and religion; it is almost as though Erikson is soft-selling his indifference to religious dogma, in the sense of not wanting readers to get caught up in his own views on religion. But in fact he places psychology well above religion, since psychology "endeavors to establish what is demonstrably true in human behavior," and religion "...elaborates on what feels profoundly true even though it is not demonstrable."

Meanwhile, as to the book's emphasis on Luther: in his youth Martin Luther was "a rather endangered young man," Erikson writes; Luther was "beset with a syndrome of conflicts" (p. 15) and yet the young Luther was able to find a solution for those conflicts in the spiritual side of life thanks in part to a person superior to him in the Augustinian order. Part of that "solution" for Luther, Erikson explains, was his ability to "bridge a political and psychological vacuum" which had been created through "Western Christendom."

In Chapter II, "The Fit in the Choir," Erikson writes that a very pivotal moment in the early life of Luther was when, in his mid-twenties, he was in choir practice in the monastery and fell suddenly to the ground. His behavior was "like one possessed," and, according to three of Luther's young contemporaries, Luther "roared with the voice of a bull...'it isn't me!'" (p. 23). The Latin translation of what Luther is said to have bellowed is "I am not!"

The Scripture that was being discussed at that moment was apparently Mark 9:17; "And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit." The men who were colleagues of Luther and reported on this wild scene say that Luther was "possessed by demons - the religious and psychiatric borderline case of the middle ages - and that he showed himself possessed" even though he did his best to deny he was possessed. Luther had entered the Black Monastery of the Augustinians in Erfurt at the age of 21.

He entered the monastery against his father's will; his father had wanted him to be a lawyer, and indeed Luther had already received a master of arts degree with "high honors" at the University of Erfurt at the age of twenty-one in 1505. Why did he leave the university? He had an "attack of acute panic" during a loud and violent thunderstorm, and during that attack, he made a vow of some kind (p. 24).

At this point in the book, Erikson digs up research on Luther's "fit" in the choir, offering various views from others' writings - those "experts" who later speculated about it - including Otto Scheel, a German professor of theology, who "flatly disavows" the story but in the process of denial equates Luther's possible "fit" with Paul's "miraculous [and yet pathological] conversion." A Dominican named Heinrich Denifle, another historian / archivist quoted by Erikson, suggests that Luther's "fit" was the result of "an abysmal depravity of character"; after all, Denifle believed Luther to be "too much of a psychopath to be credited with honest mental or spiritual suffering" (p. 26).

Still another "expert" on the subject of the "fit" is Dr. Paul J. Reiter, a Danish psychiatrist, believes that Luther suffered "erratic upsets in his nervous system" which occurred during his "neurotic" period of his twenties. There are more experts and further opinions on that "fit" in the monastery that day, and on pages 29-45 (or so) Erikson goes deep into every expert's view of the "fit" to justify and explain why he, Erikson, paid such close attention to one episode in the life of Luther. On page 36 Erikson suspects that the reader suspects the "fit in the choir attracted me originally because I suspected the words 'I am not!'" indicated Luther was asserting loudly that he was not possessed, or sinful, or sick. On page 37, Erikson states that in light of the emotional volatility Luther went through in his later life - "weeping, sweating, and fainting" - it is reasonable to assume the fit could represent the "symptomatic...pathological and defensive aspects of a total revelation... [likely based on] suppressed rage" that had nowhere to go but out through his mouth. To back up his supposition, Erikson points out that both Freud and Darwin had some "neurotic involvement" in their lives and it led to a "change of direction." Darwin had failed in medicine, and Freud had "neurotic suffering" and came upon his "supreme task almost accidentally."

It is clear that one of Erikson's main points is that all three of these men, Freud, Darwin, and Luther, had big problems with their fathers during their maturation. Erikson doesn't mention it, but underlying all his narrative - sometimes very enlightening and entertaining, and other times plodding and didactic - is his own difficulties with his own father issues.

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