Identity Crisis

Erik H. Erikson, the psychoanalyst who profoundly reshaped views of human development, died yesterday at the Rosewood Manor Nursing Home in Harwich, Mass. He was 91.He had a brief illness, said his daughter, Sue Erikson Bloland of Manhattan.A friend and disciple of Sigmund Freud, Dr. Erikson was a thinker whose ideas had effects far beyond psychoanalysis, shaping the emerging fields of child development and life-span studies and reaching into the humanities.He was best known for the theory that each stage of life, from infancy and early childhood on, is associated with a specific psychological struggle that contributes to a major aspect of personality.

WASHINGTON -- The United States' most important military alliance, a mighty machine that kept Europe peaceful for four decades, faces a post-Cold War identity crisis.Three years after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrated the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the alliance is struggling over demands from Poland, Hungary and the other former Communist states for protection from a resurgent Russia.The problem pits the West's relationship with Central Europe's young democracies against the need to support Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and his reform government, under fire from nationalists resentful over the loss of empire.

WASHINGTON -- Susan Graham says the U.S. Census needs a new category to describe her children's race.Their mother is white, their father is black and that makes Ryan, 8, and Megan, 5, "multiracial," said Ms. Graham of Roswell, Ga."More and more parents all over our country are instilling pride in our multiracial children," she said. "Can we succeed if our children leave home only to be denied an equal place in our society?"Her request is just one of many being heard by the House subcommittee that oversees the census as it wrestles with the increasingly complex question of how to identify Americans.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Three years ago, Hsu Hsin-liang was in jail on sedition charges. Now he leads an opposition party controlling almost a third of this island's legislature. In three years, he could become Taiwan's first directly elected president.The change in Mr. Hsu's fortunes reflects an extraordinary political transformation here.Taiwan's economic miracle is well known. Less recognized is its political miracle. After decades of often brutal rule by the Chinese Nationalist Party that fled here from China's mainland in the 1940s, Taiwan has become the first democracy in 4,000 years of Chinese history.

Whenever fans talk about the Big Four professional sports, the general consensus is that they're talking baseball, football, basketball and hockey. But the way the news of Mario Lemieux's illness was covered last week, the NHL still may have a ways to go to firmly establish itself on the same plateau as the other three -- or even pro tennis and golf."

At times what marks an important book is the author's capacity to upend our interpretation of things we thought we already understood.In January of 1990, on public television, Bill Moyers interviewed an almost unknown American poet named Robert Bly about Mr. Bly's interest in the identity crisis of the American man. That broadcast brought in a deluge of requests to PBS from viewers asking for transcripts of the interview. Later that year, Mr. Bly published his thoughtful book about men, ''Iron John,'' and it quickly became a best-seller.

When the University of Maryland police arrested a student formanufacturing and distributing false identification the other day, I breathed a sigh of relief that I am 21 years old and no longer need services like his.The young entrepreneur could get a huge fine and even some time in jail. And his clients -- people under 21 caught possessing or using fake IDs -- could be fined, lose their driver's licenses (their real ones, that is) and carry a permanent police record.Things were easier when I was interested in fake IDs. Like your first girlfriend or your first car, you never forget your first fake.

Berlin. -- The German connection with Europe, solid and settled two years ago, is today in question. This means that the Germans' belief about their own future is a problem again. For four decades the Germans have found their solution in Germany's integration into Europe. Today, the nature and dimensions of this Europe are uncertain, as is the future of Europe's relationship to the United States.The Germans have already discovered Germany's own unification to be costly and disappointing. They thought it was going to be a straightforward job of material reorganization and reconstruction.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- It took Todd Frohwirth more than 10 years to decide who he was going to be. First, it was sidewinding Kent Tekulve. Then, it was submarining Dan Quisenberry. Then, Tekulve again.That's where he was when he arrived in the Orioles organization last year, not really knowing which way to turn until he hooked up with pitching coach Dick Bosman."I've always thrown sidearm," Frohwirth said, "but, when I saw Tekulve in the World Series in 1979, that's when I started thinking about what I was doing."