Erikson at Yale and Riggs: Clarifying Links Between Child Development and Adult Resilience

Opens on October 19, 2009 and closes on November 30, 2009

In many branches of medicine epidemiologists, developmental biologists and behavioral scientists are linking developmnetal processes in early childhood to the patterns of health and illness across the span of adult development. In cardiology, for example, patterns of fetal nutrition have been linked to cardiovascular health and illness at midlife. In psychiatry, the interplay between genes and adverse environments in childhood play a central role in the slow evolution of risk for severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. Erik Erikson, America's pre-eminent psychoanalyst in the middle of the last century, laid crucial observational and conceptual groundwork for many of these current approaches in medicine. His best known work, Childhood and Society, clearly specified the psychological and social challenges for children early in their development and showed how their successful resolution could build resilience to psychological problems in adolescence and adulthood. With rich and penetrating observational studies he noted the interplay between well-specified developmnetal stages and cultural processes. Erikson's seminal work began at Yale at the Child Study Center.

The special relevance of Erikson's work for current medical education and research will be the focus of the annual Erik Erikson Lecture at the Child Study Center and of a special exhibit on Erikson at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. The first Erikson Lecturer will be Edward R. Shapiro, MD, the Medical Director of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, one of America's foremost psychiatric hospitals. Erikson completed some of his most important work at Riggs. Dr. Shapiro's lecture will describe how the current treatment program at Riggs has expanded and deepened Erikson's work. He will focus on patients who have failed to respond to many previous efforts at treatment and show how current impasses in treatment of adults are linked to failures to establish trust and confidence in primary relationships in early development. He will describe how the special features of the Riggs treatment system allow patients and staff to work collaboratively to re-examine these relationship processes as a central part of the treatment program. The lecture is scheduled for October 20 from 1 -2 pm in the Cohen Auditorium (NIHB E02) of the Child Study Center, 230 S. Frontage Road.

The Cushing/Whitney exhibit, "Erik Erikson at Yale and Riggs: Clarifying Links Between Child Development and Adult Resilience," will focus on both Erikson's work and its influence. It will also highlight his connections with both Yale and Riggs and the role of the Austen Riggs Center in the continuing evolution of American psychiatry. The exhibit opens on October 19, 2009 and closes on November 30, 2009. All is open to the public and free of charge.