Identity

Identity (lat. identicus — identical, the same) — a person’s awareness of his belonging to a particular social and personal position within the framework of social roles and ego states. Identity, from the point of view of the psychosocial approach (Erik Erickson), is a kind of epicenter of the life cycle of each person. It takes shape as a psychological construct in adolescence, and the functionality of the individual in adult independent life depends on its qualitative characteristics. Identity determines the ability of the individual to assimilate personal and social experience and maintain his own integrity and subjectivity in the external world subject to change.

This structure is formed in the process of integration and reintegration at the intrapsychic level of the results of resolving basic psychosocial crises, each of which corresponds to a certain age stage of personality development. In the case of a positive resolution of this or that crisis, the individual acquires a specific ego-power, which not only determines the functionality of the personality, but also contributes to its further development. Otherwise, a specific form of alienation arises — a kind of «contribution» to the confusion of identity.

Erik Erickson, defining identity, describes it in several aspects, namely:

• Individuality is a conscious sense of one’s own uniqueness and one’s own separate existence.
• Identity and integrity — a sense of inner identity, continuity between what a person was in the past and what he promises to become in the future; the feeling that life has coherence and meaning.
• Unity and synthesis — a sense of inner harmony and unity, a synthesis of images of oneself and children’s identifications into a meaningful whole, which gives rise to a sense of harmony.
• Social solidarity is a feeling of internal solidarity with the ideals of society and a subgroup in it, the feeling that one’s own identity makes sense for people respected by this person (reference group) and that it corresponds to their expectations.

Erickson distinguishes two interdependent concepts — group identity and ego-identity. Group identity is formed due to the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on including him in a given social group, on developing a worldview inherent in this group. Ego-identity is formed in parallel with group identity and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his Self, despite the changes that occur to a person in the process of his growth and development.

The formation of ego-identity or, in other words, the integrity of the personality continues throughout a person’s life and goes through a number of stages:

1. The first stage of individual development (from birth to a year). Basic Crisis: Trust vs. Distrust. The potential ego-power of this stage is hope, and the potential alienation is temporary confusion.
2. The second stage of individual development (1 year to 3 years). Basic Crisis: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. The potential ego-power is will, and the potential alienation is pathological self-awareness.
3. The third stage of individual development (from 3 to 6 years). Basic crisis: initiative versus guilt. Potential ego-power is the ability to see the goal and strive for it, and potential alienation is a rigid role fixation.
4. The fourth stage of individual development (from 6 to 12 years). Basic Crisis: Competence vs. Failure. The potential ego-strength is confidence, and the potential alienation is the stagnation of action.
5. The fifth stage of individual development (from 12 years to 21 years). Basic Crisis: Identity versus Identity Confusion. Potential ego-power is wholeness, and potential alienation is totality.
6. The sixth stage of individual development (from 21 to 25 years). Basic crisis: intimacy versus isolation. The potential ego-power is love, and the potential alienation is narcissistic rejection.
7. The seventh stage of individual development (from 25 to 60 years). Basic crisis: generativity versus stagnation. The potential ego-power is caring, and the potential alienation is authoritarianism.
8. The eighth stage of individual development (after 60 years). Basic Crisis: Integrity versus Despair. The potential ego-power is wisdom, and the potential alienation is desperation.

Each stage of the life cycle is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society. Society also determines the content of development at different stages of the life cycle. According to Erickson, the solution of the problem depends both on the level of development already achieved by the individual and on the general spiritual atmosphere of the society in which he lives.

The transition from one form of ego-identity to another causes identity crises. Crises, according to Erickson, are not a personality disease, not a manifestation of a neurotic disorder, but turning points, «moments of choice between progress and regression, integration and delay.»

Like many researchers of age development, Erickson paid special attention to adolescence, characterized by the most profound crisis. Childhood is coming to an end. The completion of this great stage of the life path is characterized by the formation of the first integral form of ego-identity. Three lines of development lead to this crisis: rapid physical growth and puberty (the «physiological revolution»); preoccupation with “how I look in the eyes of others”, “what I am”; the need to find one’s professional vocation that meets the acquired skills, individual abilities and the demands of society.

The main identity crisis falls on adolescence. The result of this stage of development is either the acquisition of an «adult identity» or a developmental delay, the so-called diffuse identity.

The interval between youth and adulthood, when a young person seeks to find his place in society through trial and error, Erickson called a mental moratorium. The severity of this crisis depends both on the resolution of earlier crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.), and on the entire spiritual atmosphere of society. An unsurmounted crisis leads to a state of acute diffuse identity, which forms the basis of a special pathology of adolescence. Erickson’s Identity Pathology Syndrome:

• regression to the infantile level and the desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible;
• a vague but persistent state of anxiety;
• feelings of isolation and emptiness;
• constantly being in a state of something that can change life;
• fear of personal communication and inability to emotionally influence persons of the opposite sex;
• hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles, even male and female;
• contempt for everything domestic and an irrational preference for everything foreign (on the principle of «it’s good where we are not»). In extreme cases, there is a search for a negative identity, the desire to «become nothing» as the only way of self-affirmation.

The acquisition of identity is becoming today the most important life task of every person and, of course, the core of the professional activity of a psychologist. Before the question «Who am I?» automatically caused enumeration of traditional social roles. Today, more than ever, the search for an answer requires special courage and common sense.