Identity: Youth and Crisis

Chapter 3 draws on and expands Erikson’s writing from 1950. Erikson begins by identifying adolescence as the point at which individuals have sufficient physical growth, mental maturation, and social responsibility to pass through the crisis of identity. The crisis embodies numerous inner and outer conflicts, and passing each successfully contributes to a sense of inner unity.

He defines a healthy adult personality as one in which the child’s cognitive and social development grows gradually, in complex stages. Erikson recalls the epigenetic principle, which states that an organism begins with a plan for growth; its parts arise according to the plan and eventually form a functioning whole. The principle holds for both the developing fetus and the baby as it navigates the its society. The developing child follows inner laws that create a series of potential social interactions necessary for personality development.

Erikson next defines the eight stages of development for the child’s personality. Each stage becomes a crisis, or turning point, because as children grow in an area, they also become vulnerable in it. The result is either strength or maladjustment.

In Stage 1, the infant must acquire a sense of basic trust both of others and of the self. This stage begins with the baby’s overwhelming need for food, comfort, and stimuli. Adults who have not mastered this stage withdraw when things go wrong. Sudden weaning or abandonment in this stage can lead to adult depression. The mother is key at this point.

Stage 2, Early Childhood, involves the will to be oneself. It is particularly concerned with learning to control the bowels. Toilet training requires gains in muscle maturation, verbalization, and discrimination between holding on and letting go. Through it, the child begins to experience their will in a battle for autonomy. Just as the child is beginning to understand the concepts of I, you, me, and mine, they are learning the idea of holding on and letting go—whether it involves a toy or feces.

The child may rebel or regress in toilet training. Emerging from this stage with a sense of self-control and self-esteem shows healthy development; the child who doesn’t master the stage incurs shame and doubt.

In Stage 3, which occurs around the end of age three, the child learns they are a person of their own, separate from the parents. They must emerge with a “sense of initiative as a basis for a realistic sense of ambition and purpose” (115). The three developments that serve this stage and bring around its crisis are, first, the child’s ability to move around more freely; second, the developing language skills that allow them to ask numerous questions; and third, an expanded imagination.

Erikson gives some weight to Freud’s theories about children’s sexual urges at this age, as boys love their mother and see the father as a rival, and girls become attached to the father and jealous of the mother. Girls and boys become aware of their gender roles and are governed by conscience and an inner voice of self-guidance. If their initiative is thwarted, they may later express “hysterical” denial or self-restriction or, conversely, a tireless desire to succeed.

Parents of children in this stage must offer strong examples of positive work activities, along with comprehensible games. Children must learn that adult tasks will actually fulfill the futures they imagine for themselves. Failure in this stage can lead a child to glorify conquest and aggression.

In Stage 4, the child of school age is eager to share in playing, building things, and making plans. They attach themselves to teachers and parents of other children and wish to watch and imitate people in understandable jobs, such as firefighters and police officers. Children should be given the “widest possible basic education for the greatest number of possible careers” (122). They have a sense of industry, a desire to make things well and to persevere in concrete goals.

The child who fails at these tasks develops a sense of inferiority. Children may be unprepared for school or unsuccessful at school life, may not receive the recognition they deserve, or may want to act babyish. They may also experience racial or social prejudice, which also creates a sense of unworthiness.

Stage 4 differs from earlier stages because it is “not a swing from an inner upheaval to a new mastery” (125). Instead, children learn to understand the “technological ethos” of their culture, or where technology fits into their school life and provides opportunities to complete meaningful tasks. Two extremes in education do not serve the developing child: They should neither be overly restricted nor allowed to play without guidance. In particular, children who accept work as the only way to feel worthwhile will be limited in their identity.

Stage 5 is Adolescence, the main focus of the text. Erikson begins by characterizing the stage as a time when students’ genital maturation, combined with the uncertainty of the adult roles they face, generate attempts at establishing an adolescent “subculture.” Teens are overly preoccupied with appearance and fitting in with society, and the previous stages all manifest again as new needs within these characteristics.

The Stage 1 need for trust becomes, in Stage 5, a need to find people and ideas to have faith in. Stage 2’s need to find autonomy becomes a need to find opportunities for work that will not expose the individual to ridicule by peers. Stage 3’s need for initiative and imaginative play becomes an adolescent’s willingness to trust peers and objection to limitations on their self-image. Finally, Stage 4’s need for accomplishment and exposure to possible careers becomes a need to find a career in which the teen can both succeed and find satisfaction.

Youth who live in a time where technological, economic, or ideological trends embrace youthful energy are the most satisfied because the opportunities provided fulfill their ideals. In contrast, an environment that deprives the young person of opportunities for expression leads to violent resistance, for identity is needed to feel alive.

Failure in Stage 5 is represented by “identify confusion.” When the dilemma comes from doubts about ethnic or sexual identity or a longstanding feeling of hopelessness, delinquent and borderline psychotic episodes can occur. Young people in this crisis may run away, drop out of school, or withdraw.

Generally, the inability to settle on an occupational identity most disturbs young people and causes them to identify with the heroes of cliques. They may compensate by falling in love, not necessarily from sexual urges but to clarify their own identity in relation to another person. Cliques can actually help young people by testing their loyalty at a time when their values are in conflict. As stated in Chapter 2, totalitarian regimes appeal to youth who have lost their group identities.

Democratic societies must present young people with ideals that can be shared by youth from diverse backgrounds and many opportunities for constructive work. Democracies must also monitor their ideology, which Erikson labels the “guardian of identity” (133). Young people absorb ideology, giving it loyalty and energy and shifting it as needed to maintain its significance.

Erikson next looks to life after adolescence and identity crises that form in later stages of the life cycle. Stage 6 presents the crisis of intimacy, both sexual and relational. Failure to form intimate relationships leads to a tendency to view anyone different as less worthy.

Generativity is a term coined by Erikson to mean a universal concern for establishing and guiding the next generation. Although generativity derives from the word generative (capable of production or reproduction), it need not take the form of having children in Stage 6. Rather, it encompasses productivity and creativity. Adults in Stage 6 who don’t have any of these opportunities—or who have children and don’t care for them well—experience stagnation and boredom, which may manifest as early invalidism.

Erikson skips a detailed discussion of Stage 7 (the Adulthood period, concerning the need to engage with others) to look at the eighth and final stage of life, where the goal is integrity. An adult in a healthy Stage 8 can accept their life experiences. An individual who can’t achieve this goal feels disgust and despair. Psychosocial strength is a process that simultaneously regulates “individual life cycles, the sequence of generations, and the structure of society” (141), all of which have evolved together.