EDitorial: Identity in Change

TLDR: According to as discussed by the authors, the identity process does not come to an end after the individual has passed through the normative identity and developmental crises, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood, and it requires consciousness of the past in the present.

Abstract: Originally the subject of Identity was a domain of sociology and social psychology. Since the basic contributions of H. E. Erikson in the 1950s, it has also involved psychoanalysts and become an approach for understanding the emergence and function of a “social” self. With Jacobson, Mahler and modern infant research it was absorbed by the concept of the Self and became a component of self-psychology without being regarded as an area of its own. Not until the last decade of the 20th century did an increasing interest in identity re-emerge among psychoanalysts. It was based on the rapid social change of the western world and culture, which caused what social human sciences conceptualised as a collective identity crisis. The question how the changed environmental conditions affect the psychic constitution and whether or how identity changes under the influence of the conditions of the modern world tends to become more and more pressing today. It turns out that Erikson’s idea of a gradual development, which, after the individual has gone through the “normative” identity crisis during adolescence, leads to a relatively long lasting identity state, can hardly be maintained in our time. Instead, another aspect, which was already contained in Erikson’s developmental model, became predominant – the idea of a long-lasting identity process. According to current ideas the identity process does not come to an end after the individual has passed through the normative identity and developmental crises, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood. Facing permanently changing role offers and interaction possibilities, today’s individual is in a continuous developmental crisis. The identity process therefore lasts all life long and comes to end only with the end of our life. In the present discussion identity proves increasingly to be a construct, which has to be considered from two sides. Actually, there are two dimensions coming into focus: content and function. In regard to content, identity contains the sum of identifications with patterns adopted from of emotionally important others and according to Erikson convey the sense of continuity and i ividuality. We can only attain that sense when we match the ourself-concept in the eyes of others. The sense of identity arises from adapting to roles. It implies latent tension between role xpectations by others and the self-concept. One must assume today that the variety and multiplicity of roles induces an unlimited potential space in which “modern” identity occurs. One can no longer imagine identity as being related to one or a few concepts from outside (Others) or inside (Self), but rather as a condensation of partial identities, a network in which the Self is looking for its place in conformity with its actual need of identity, which depends on the context. The second dimension thereby gets increasing importance: Identity as a function. This function is the conjunction of different, partly disparate identities into a continuous sense of identity. It requires consciousness of the past in the present. This function is realized by what one may call the “identity principle”, which serves the aim of maintaining a feeling of continuity and accordance with oneself. It is based on integrative ego functions, which serve to resolve tensions between the inside and the outside, between the past and the present and between partial self-aspects and social role offers. It has to do with the balance between drives and social roles and expectations. Today’s discourse on Identity is also devoted to the development of identity particularly in early i teractions. They correspond with the developmental research and make use of its results. Thus, concepts like the success of very early intersubjective exchange processes move into the centre of the theory formation, like mirroring, reflexive functioning or basic fitting together in the primary care relationship. The crucial question arising in this discussion, is whether and how the feeling of being unique and separable from others