Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History is a 1958 book by psychologist Erik Erikson. It was one of the first psychobiographies of a famous historical figure. Erikson was the founder of today's accepted depiction of the growth and evolution of the psyche throughout the lifelong cycle, and coined the term "identity crisis." Erikson found in Martin Luther a good model of his discovery of "the identity crisis". For example, Erikson was sure he could explain Luther's spontaneous eruption, during a monastery choir practice, "I am not!"^[1]

Luther suffered through the prototype (now classic) environment that foments the crisis, and succeeded in a healthy resolution, becoming more fulfilling of their overall talent and human potential than if the crisis had not been experienced. In the end Luther chose the obedient, provincial leadership path his father had wished for him, rather than the national fame he could have easily pursued after his celebrity and wealth, but only after Luther had disobeyed and suffered many years in an identity crisis.^[1]

Martin grew up in a social era stressing "the final judgement", the balance between sin and good deeds, the souls destiny of hell or heaven, prayer, and... the sale of Catholic indulgences. The theme of life was total obedience to authority and to God. Criminals were punished publicly; children were also caned and whipped in school. "Guilt and sadness", Erikson wrote, was the prevailing worldview.

Hans Luther, Martin Luther's father, was a peasant turned capitalist with an ownership stake in a mine. He managed this way to pay for his son Luther's education, and to attempt to fulfill a lifelong dream to see his son become a successful lawer, and thus to launch his lineage into security. Martin Luther completed Latin studies, and at seventeen, entered university. In 1505, he enrolled in law school, as planned. But a freak accident of nature convinced Martin to enter a monastery and become a monk—a lightning bolt struck right next to him. Already having misgivings about the path chosen for him, he took the event as a sign.^[1]

Martin was obedient to the Catholic monastery, but felt guilty over the sexual thoughts that consumed his young man's mind. "He had some kind of panic attack in the choir of his monastery church, crying out "I am not!" This identity crisis was on top of his betraying his fathers wishes that he be secular and marry. "The monastery path seemed wrong as well. He was caught in the terrible no-man's land of identity. Whatever he thought he was, it was painfully clear, he was not."^[1]

Martin endured his fate obediently, achieved a doctorate in theology and quickly ascended the ranks of the church, becoming a vicor of eleven monasteries by 1515. His perception of the church kept growing more and more apart from his spiritual and intellectual understanding of spirituality. Sins required worldly penance and the sale of indulgences disturbed him.

Finally, he decided that the authority of "the word" was far more important than the authority of an institution. In October, 1517, he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses, outlining the areas where the church had to reform, to the door of the church. It had a huge impact on the nation because of the recent invention of the printing press.

Anyone who had a gripe with the status quo for any reason, now had a cause to follow—Martin Luther, celebrity. His rebellion sparked off the Protestant Reformation.

Erikson believed that rebellion is most likely to manifest in the youth stage of life. He suggested that before the rebellion can occur intensly, young people must first have believed in the thing they are rebelling against. Luther was thirty-four, and he had believed desperately in the authority of the very church he was rebelling against, for failing to follow the Bible. The most vocal critic will have been the most devotion and attachment.

Erikson's interpretation of Martin Luther's life is that "great figures of history often spend years in a passive state. From a young age, they feel they will create a big stamp on the world, but unconsciously they wait for their particular truth to form itself in their minds, until they can make the most impact at the right time.^[1] Erikson makes the point that

• Martin's standing up to a Holy Roman Church can only be understood in the context of his initial disobedience to his father. Luther was not, Erikson suggests, rebellious or disobedient by nature,^[1] but having done it once, he was the reluctant "expert" who was not.
• although Martin Luther made a theological point, the church was not particularly out of line with the times of the era, but it was simply Martin Luther's own personal, internal issues with himself, that manifested against the church, and by projection, a crisis of identity.^[1]

Erikson identifies a second birth with the identity crisis, when it is successfully maneuvered. William James gave Erikson the idea that while once born people conform, en masse, painlessly to the consensus reality of the age, but twice born people get their direction by enduring an identity crisis of such tortuous magnitude that their souls are transformed and permanently fixed into a direction as such as a reformer role for that time for that society. In Martin's case it was a "good son" V.S. "good monk" crisis that gave him direction to play the good reformer of the bad church for having more concern for filling their coffers at the expense of the very souls for whom it was their true calling and their spiritual leadership role to properly attend to by the word of the Bible, and not by the whim of the institution's temporal needs.^[1]

Richard Webster compares Young Man Luther to Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death, observing that they both point to "numerous similarities between Luther's view of the human condition and that found in psychoanalysis."^[2]

• Protestant reformation
• William James

• Commentary on Young Man Luther from 50 Psychology Classics (2007)