Identity: Youth and Crisis

Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) looms large in Erikson’s essays, both because of his foundational place in the field of psychoanalysis and because he also formulated a theory of human development centered on identity and taking place over stages.

In Freudian theory, the mind can be divided into three parts: the id, or a person’s most basic needs and desires; the superego, or the set of standards and values that a person adopts over time; and the ego, or the conscious mind that negotiates between the id and the superego. Humans develop through a series of psychosexual stages, each focused on pleasure zones in the body, including the mouth, anus, and genitals. These stages take place during early childhood, and problems that block human growth (ranging from neuroses to mental illness) cannot be readily accessed by memory. Freud’s psychoanalytic therapy was therefore rooted in analyzing a person’s dreams, associations, and memories to reveal the unconscious mind. His Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899, was especially influential.

Erikson’s psychosocial theory differs from Freud’s in postulating that the stages of development take place throughout an individual’s life and exist in relationship to society. It is similar in suggesting that a person can get “stuck” at a particular stage, causing psychological problems in adulthood.

Erikson calls on Carl Jung’s theory of inherited prototypes, called “archetypes,” in Chapter 2. A Swiss psychiatrist, Jung (1875-1961) studied medicine and became a psychiatrist. Initially he followed Freudian theory, but over time, he developed the theory that the mind of everyone has an inherited collective unconscious that holds a group of archetypes—universal models that influence human behavior. Where Freud postulated the mind was made up of the id, ego, and superego, Jung believed the ego, unconscious, and collective unconscious ruled behavior.

The universal archetypes, described in works such as Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1931), reside within the collective unconscious and fall into four main groups. The persona is the way in which people present themselves to the world by developing various social “masks” that allow them to fit into society. The shadow is a person’s repressed ideas, desires, and instincts. The anima, associated with qualities such as empathy and trust, is the feminine part of a man’s psyche, while the animus, associated with qualities such as logic and problem-solving, is the masculine part of a woman’s psyche. Finally, the self is a person’s unified consciousness and unconsciousness; bringing them together through a process called individuation results in a healthy, integrated personality.

Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler (1870-1937), a colleague of Freud, broke with Freud over his theory that feelings of belonging and relationship give the individual a sense of worth. Erikson describes the initial reception of Adler’s work in the field of psychoanalysis as “stormy.” Adler went on to found a school of psychology called individual psychology focused on the human need to compensate for feelings of inferiority, or the inferiority complex.