In contrast to Freud, on what did Erikson place greater emphesis?

Sigmund Freud, an Austrian
neurologist, created psychoanalysis and founded clinical
psychiatry as we know it today. His theories have been challenged and changed
but remain the base of modern psychiatry.

Erik
Erikson, of Danish descent but raised in Germany, was a student of
psychoanalysis and an influential figure in post-Freudian
psychiatry.

While Freud focused on the unconscious mind and
psychosexual development, Erikson focused on
stages of life as a whole. Freud's basic theory is that all activity in life is based in
our unconscious desires as created in infancy by our latent sexual needs; the
Ego is subservient to the Id. In contrast,
Erikson theorized that the Ego, in its ability to consciously understand and accept the
Id, has the power to supercede it without falling prey to mental
damage.

In addition, Erikson claimed that personal development didn't
stop with Freud's Genital stage, extending to death; instead, each of Erikson's eight
stages of life is marked by a conflict -- for example, a teenager is rooted in Identity
vs. Role Confusion: the classic "Who Am I?" These stages cover the entirety of life and
postulates that humans have the ability to overcome each conflict in turn, understanding
and accepting the extremes of each, resulting in a rounded individual. He also concluded
that personality is a product of environment, instead of Freud's theory that everyone
has similar unconscious desires which manifest in different ways regardless of
environment.

Erikson's emphasis, therefore, is on the Ego conquering
the Id; man's ability to reason gives him the power to comprehend his innate desires and
control them, instead of letting them control him.