In the summer of 1927, a young artist wondering through Europe took at a school established by Freud for the children of his patients and friends. This artist, Erik Homburger, who had never received a university degree, became friendly with the psychoanalysts and was later trained by them (Burger 1990 p. 121). After chaining his name to Erikson, he began to practice psychotherapy and eventually extol his own views on the nature of the human personality. Although Erikson retained some of Freud's ideas in his theory, his own contributions to the psychoanalytic approach to personality are many and it is these contributions that will be examined here.