Identity: Youth and Crisis

Identity: Youth and Crisis by Erik H. Erikson (1902-1994), published in 1968, is a foundational work in the field of developmental psychology in which the renowned psychoanalyst and anthropologist explores the development of identity during adolescence and young adulthood. In his Childhood and Society, published in 1950, Erikson laid out his theory of how the personality develops in eight stages throughout life and is linked to the individual’s social environment. In Identity: Youth and Crisis, the author focuses mainly on adolescence, a time of both crisis and growth in identity, and relates it to such far-ranging topics as totalitarianism, the particular identity characteristics of women, and the civil rights movement. The book collects his major essays on the topic, written over the course of two decades, exploring themes including Psychosocial Development and the Mutual Contract, Identity as a Product of Environment, and Psychoanalysis as Social and Political Critique.

This study guide uses the Kindle edition of the W. W. Norton book.

Content Warning: The source text features outdated and offensive language and attitudes toward women, LGBTQ+ identity, and sexuality.

Summary

Each chapter of Identity: Youth and Crisis is a revision of one of Erikson’s major essays of the past two decades about identity. Chapter 1 also serves as the book’s prologue. Erikson’s purpose in collecting the essays is to review the changing meaning of the concepts of identity and identity crisis, which Erikson wrote about previously in his 1950 book Childhood and Society.

Erikson states that identity is located both within the individual and in his communal culture. The process is unconscious and constantly in flux. Furthermore, identity formation exists in relation to social and historic factors—a process Erikson terms “psychosocial relativity” (23). The “crisis” in the term “identity crisis” is not a catastrophe but a necessary and normal turning point that adolescents must accomplish to reach adulthood.

In the youth of the late 1960s, Erikson sees confusion in sexual identity and the need to resist social expectations. Since identity forms within a society, he attributes this confusion to adolescent involvement with current events. He believes technology and science will give young people a healthy outlet for their development.

In Chapter 2, Erikson draws on various anthropological observations he has made in the past. These include the observation that Sioux children who have been subject to forced “reeducation” in residential schools find their identity formation blocked because they can no longer associate their milestones with traditional values based on hunting prey.

Erikson acknowledges the contributions of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung to the concept of internalized prototypes, or archetypes, that regulate behavior. Erikson finds value in Jungian concepts and relates them to various patients.

Human self-esteem continues to evolve through adolescence and into adulthood as one masters age-appropriate skills in relation to society. Social groups such as one’s class, nation, or culture can provide the firm sense of inner identity needed for true maturation. Erikson believes that veterans who suffer trauma after being discharged from the armed forces have experienced a loss of ego identity because they failed to find an identity within military service.

Erikson examines totalitarianism and how childhood and youth can predispose an individual to accept it. However, total identification with a group can lead to a negative identity, one in which young people prefer to be “nothing.”

In Chapter 3, Erikson states that the reason the identity crisis takes place in adolescence is because the youth has grown physically, mentally, and socially by this point, creating numerous inner and outer conflicts. The epigenetic principle plays into this crisis: As a child develops into a functioning whole, they follow an inner plan that actually creates the social interactions needed for personality development.

Erikson recaps the eight stages of the life cycle that he had previously outlined in Childhood and Society. Each is framed as a conflict of opposing forces leading to a crisis that must be overcome in order for the individual to move to the next stage.

In Chapter 4, Erikson states that adolescence ends when the individual can identify with adults and make meaningful choices that impact adult life. Maturity may require a “psychosocial moratorium” (156) that allows the young person to find a niche in society and to reconcile a mature genitalia, work opportunities, and former childhood identifications and roles with the roles offered by society.

The community supports the child’s development through these stages by presenting a hierarchy of roles appropriate to different ages. This is what allows a child to emerge at the end of adolescence with a new, cohesive identity. The work of the ego is to bridge the disconnects between the different levels of personality development. As in Erikson’s discussion of the epigenetic principle, this work is done in tandem with society.

Erikson discusses patients with identity confusion and negative identity. Identity confusion can occur when a young person can’t find a suitable career or is pushed toward sexual intimacy and so rejects traditional roles. Young people with negative identity, often as a result of economic, ethnic, and religious marginality, can turn to crime and antisocial behaviors.

Chapter 5 is an attempt to clarify the meanings of terms Erikson uses, including “ego identity” and “self-identity.” He considers the use of “I” or the “Self” by psychologists and reflects that what people think of “I” reflects various selves that change in different situations, which come together in one coherent Self. Furthermore, in opposition to Sigmund Freud’s theory of the ego, Erikson believes one’s ego and those of others mutually affect and order their worlds in a process called mutuality—the secret of love.

In Chapter 6, Erikson reiterates that basic virtues can arise only as an individual in a certain life stage interacts with the social forces of a true community. Individuals in the stage seek constancy in their environment, and it is society’s task to fulfill this quest by offering opportunities in areas such as science, art, politics, and sports. Youthful energy is derived from physical growth, powers of comprehension, and genital maturation. Society recognizes this energy, and the youth in turn gives it loyalty.

Chapter 7 states that women have won some freedom in access to career competition and consumerism, but their unique powers are needed in the political sphere. Erikson roots young women’s successful passage out of the adolescent stage in their ability to commit to a mate and their children. A woman’s capacity to bear and raise children is a fundamental difference from young males in identity formation. Erikson draws on observations of boys and girls building during play to conclude that while boys are preoccupied with what happens outdoors, girls are concerned with the “inner space”—traits that Erikson sees as analogous to male and female genitalia. He does not believe women are “doomed” to perpetual motherhood; rather, their reproductive capacity must be reckoned with in regard to their long-term goals.

In Chapter 8, Erikson considers the role of the term “identity” in the civil rights movement. He believes negative identities have been imposed on African Americans by the dominant white culture. While the civil rights movement offers young African Americans a chance to find a communal identity, he feels they should not lose the cultural customs that also define their identity. His proposed alternative is a more inclusive identity that fuses the communal identities of the various groups within a society.