Personal Identity, Development of

Views of Erik Erikson

The concept of identity was first used and elaborated by psychoanalyst Erikson to describe a central disturbance among some young veterans returning from World War II. These men seemed to have lost a sense of inner sameness and continuity in their lives. Erikson thus began to refer to the concept of ego identity to describe a psychological entity that enables one to retain a sense of inner organization, sameness, and continuity across time and place—an entity under threat among his soldier patients. The psychoanalyst also stressed that one's sense of ego identity development is dependent on the recognition and support that individuals receive from contexts meaningful to them—the immediate family, community, nation, and culture. The formation of an ego identity is thus dependent on the ways in which parents, teachers, social service providers in the immediate community, and representatives of the larger social structure meet and confirm individuals in their charge.

Ego identity is a product of the interaction between biological givens, psychological needs, and social forces according to Erikson. Thus, ego identity development is determined in part by one's gender, physical attributes, strengths and limitations, in part by one's conscious as well as unconscious needs, wishes, interests, and talents, and in part by [Page 586]the roles and opportunities afforded one by the community. One's ego identity is, however, distinct from one's social roles. While the well-functioning individual may have many social roles in life, he or she has only one ego identity (unless there is serious psychopathology). The foundations of personal identity development begin in infancy through the images of and experiences with significant others whom one internalizes. Identity evolves during childhood based on the significant others with whom one emulates and tries to identify. However, in Erikson's view, identity formation is more than the summation of all significant identifications of childhood; rather, identity formation is the sifting, sorting, and synthesizing of earlier important identifications into a new structure, greater than the sum of its parts.

Initial identity resolutions are generally undertaken during late adolescence, though identity formation and reformation remain lifelong processes, according to Erikson. It is during adolescence that the biological changes of puberty, alongside one's growing capacities for pursuing psychological interests and values, in combination with societal demands for the assumption of adult roles and values that personal identity concerns, often first come to a head. He described the main psychosocial undertaking of adolescence to be that of finding an optimal resolution to the identity versus role confusion task. A time of identity exploration and experimentation are vital to optimal identity formation. Failure to undergo this identity formation process will leave the individual either drifting and center-less, an uninvolved spectator in life, or oppositional and antagonistic, devising an identity based all those values that parents would hate most, according to Erikson. Optimal identity formation serves as the cornerstone to the eventual expression of intimacy, both with friends as well as a life partner.

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