Erik_H_Erikson_Identity_Youth_and_Crisis

16 Idenntiy
night at eight o'clock sharp, thenthe dignity of the term seems~
to vary greatly. The quotation marks are as important as the
termtheybracket: everybody hasheard of "identity crisis" and
it arouses a mixture of curiosity, mirth, and discomfon which
yet promises, by the very play on the word "crisis," not
toturn out tobe something quite as fatal as it sounds. In other
words, a suggestive term has begun to lend itself to ritualized
usage.
Social scientists, on the other hand, sometimes attempt to
achieve greater speciicity by making such terms as "identity
crisis," "self-identity," or "sexual identity" it whatever more
measurable item they are investigating at a given time. For the
sakeoflogicalorexperimentalmaneuverability (andinorder to
keepingoodacademiccompany) theytrytotreatthesetermsas
matters of social roles, personal traits, or conscious self-images,
shunning the less manageable and more sinister-which often
also means the more vital-implications of the concept. Such
usages have,infact,becomesoindiscriminate thattheother day
a Germanreviewerofthebook inwhichI irstusedthetermin
the context of psychoanalytic egotheorycalledit the pet subjectoftheamerikanischePopulaerpsychologie.
But one maynote with satisfaction that the cosnceptualization
of identity has led to a series of valid investigations which, f
they do not make clearer what identity s, nevertheless have
provedusefulinsocialpsychology. And it may be a good thing
that the word "crisis" no longer connotes impending catastrophe,
whichat onetimeseemedtobeanobstacle totheunderstanding
of the term. It is now being accepted as desig.z.{ating a
necessary tun|ing point, a crucial moment, when development
must move one way or another, marshaling resources of
growth, recovery, and funher diferentiation. This proves applicabletomanysituations:
acrisisinindividualdevelopment or
inthe emergence of a new elite, inthe therapy of an individual
orinthetensionsofrapidhistoricalchange.
The term "identity crisis" was irst used, if I remember correctly,
for a speciic clinical purpose in the Mt. Zion Veterans'