Book
Identity and the Life Cycle: Selected Papers
The first monograph of the series Psychological Issues, gathering three of Erikson's papers with a historical introduction by David Rapaport. The papers are "Ego Development and Historical Change" (1946), in which Erikson first used the term ego identity; "Growth and Crises of the Healthy Personality"; and "The Problem of Ego Identity" (1956), his fullest early account of ego identity, of identity diffusion as the failure of identity formation in late adolescence, and of the psychosocial moratorium. Rapaport's introduction places Erikson's psychosocial theory within the psychoanalytic ego psychology founded by Heinz Hartmann and connects it with Hartmann's concern with adaptation.
Main ideas
- Ego identity, a term Erikson first used in 1946, is the sense of sameness and continuity that the ego achieves and that others recognise.
- Identity diffusion is the failure of identity formation in late adolescence.
- Society grants the young a psychosocial moratorium, a delay of adult commitment in which an identity can be formed.
- In Rapaport's introduction, Erikson's psychosocial theory belongs to the ego psychology founded by Hartmann and extends its concern with adaptation.
What it shows
- 1946
Erik Erikson introduced Ego identity
Erikson first used the term ego identity in "Ego Development and Historical Change" (1946) and gave it its fullest early treatment in "The Problem of Ego Identity" (1956), both reprinted in Identity and the Life Cycle; Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968) is his summary statement.
Erik Erikson introduced Identity diffusion
Erikson described identity diffusion as the failure of identity formation in late adolescence, chiefly in "The Problem of Ego Identity" (1956), reprinted in Identity and the Life Cycle; he later preferred the term identity confusion.
Identity diffusion opposes Ego identity
In Erikson's scheme identity diffusion is the negative pole of the adolescent crisis whose positive outcome is ego identity.
- 1959
Heinz Hartmann influenced Erik Erikson
In his introduction to Erikson's "Identity and the Life Cycle" (1959), David Rapaport placed Erikson's psychosocial theory within the ego psychology that Hartmann founded, linking it to Hartmann's concern with adaptation.
- 1958
Heinz Hartmann influenced David Rapaport
Rapaport translated Hartmann's 1939 monograph into English (1958) and, in his historical survey of psychoanalytic ego psychology (1959), treated Hartmann's work as the basis of the field he set out to systematise.