The concept of identity 9783111532387, 9783111164373

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THE CONCEPT OF IDENTITY

NEW BABYLON

Studies in the behavioral sciences 2

M O U T O N & CO PARIS

THE H A G U E

DAVID

J. D E L E Y I T A M. D.

T H E C O N C E P T OF IDENTITY With a preface by H. C. Riimke M. D., Professor University of Utrecht

M O U T O N & CO • PARIS • THE H A G U E

Translated by Ian Finlay

© Mouton & Co 1965 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form permission from the publisher

whithout

written

To my wife

. . N u is ieder menschelijk persoort, naar de oer-beteekenis van dit woord, ook een masker, en er leeft geen mensch, al is hij nog zoo eenvoudig-oprecht, zoozeer uit-een-stuk, of hij heeft zich zulk een masker gemaakt, zulk een rol opgedragen, al naar zijn idealen van menschelijke waardigheid, van behoorlijkheid en fatsoen. En hij tracht zich, als hij 't eerlijk meent, in die rol te leven, zoodat hij zelf kan gelooven te zijn wat hij voorwendt. Zoodoende, eigen of anderer fatsoens-ideaal nabootsend, boetseert en fatsoeneert hij zichzelven tot een persoon, die te meer gerespecteerd zal worden naarmate zij duidelijker, vaster en onveranderlijker is. Maar wil hij een masker vormen, een rol spelen, ver liggend buiten zijn eigen vormidealen en onbereikbaar voor de plasticiteit van zijn werkelijk wezen, dan faalt hij jammerlijk, heet een gluiper en een schurk, en is inderdaad een stumper.' FREDERIK VAN EEDEN

(uit: D e Nachtbruid, Amsterdam 1909) ( ' . . . Now every human person is, according to the primitive meaning of this word, also a mask, and there is no person living, be he ever so simply sincere, so wholly uncomplicated, but has wrought for himself such a mask, has assumed such a role, according to his ideals of human worth, of fitness and breeding. And if he means it honestly, he tries to live himself into the part so that he can believe himself to be what he pretends. Thus, following his own or others' form ideals, he moulds and fashions himself into a personality which will be the more respected the more pronounced, decided, and unchangeable it manifests itself. But would he assume a mask, enact a part far removed from his own form ideals and unattainable to the plasticity of his true nature, he fails miserably, is called a scoundrel and a knave and is indeed a wretch.') Translation by Mellie von Auw, New York 1913

PREFACE

In Hiddesen, a charming little German town, a meeting was held in 1951 to discuss 'Health and Human Relations,' sponsored jointly by the 'Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation' and the World Federation for Mental Health. At that conference Erik H. Erikson spoke on 'The Sense of Inner Identity.' I was deeply impressed by Erikson and the exposition of his brilliant ideas. In him I met an original thinker with that fascinating mixture of seriousness and humour that brings us so close to the heart of things. I think my American colleagues would call him a 'renaissancist.' We all felt that this 'concept of identity' was extremely important, but it was not clear what the exact meaning was, so loaded with significance was the new term. What happens when a teacher, full of a new idea which he is bringing home, gets back to his staff and students? He talks about it, asks questions, evokes answers. The writer of this book, Dr. de Levita, was one of those who were profoundly affected in this way. He became more or less obsessed by the notion of identity. He had the striking idea that Ovid portrays identity crises in his 'Metamorphoses.' The scientific committee of the World Federation for Mental Health chose 'Identity' as a first object for study. For their conference, of which I had the honour to be chairman, Dr. de Levita provided me with interesting material. He was so fascinated by the problem that I suggested that he should write a thesis on this subject. Now, after many years of intellectual and imaginative maturation, the book has been written, quite independent of me. The work is in itself a demonstration of the complexity of identity. In successive chapters the author adopts different identities and at the end we discover him in a remarkable synthesis of these identities. In

the first chapter we are aware of de Levita, the scholar with a touch of perfectionism. We learn that the search for identity is as old as philosophy. He traces the remarkably divergent viewpoints on either side of the Atlantic. Highly interesting are the pages on William James, whom de Levita calls the father of the modern concept of identity. Then we read extensively about Erikson's conceptions. The structure of the book is original enough. The writer has had the courage to place in the centre of it an 'Intermezzo' in which the artist de Levita is heard and where he feels free to give rein to his creative fantasy. Already in the second half of the Intermezzo we become acquainted with de Levita, the conscientious psycho-analyst, faithful to the Freudian doctrine. In the following chapter he displays the identity of a sociologist deeply interested in the theory of roles. At the end of the book de Levita comes more and more into his own identity. Here we see all his preliminary identities blending to form that which I am inclined to call his true identity. We follow 'identity' itself during the development of the book. It becomes clearer and clearer what 'identity' is. At the end of each chapter we feel that we are beginning to 'know,' but at the same time this versatile 'identity' breaks away from the grasp of every new definition. We are curious about the end and the conclusions. There we see 'identity' incarcerated in reification. Is this the end of the search for identity? No. Whether conscious of this or not, Dr. de Levita - and, to my mind, this is a great merit of his fruitful study - leaves the prison door slightly a j a r . . . . Startled, amazed and amused, we, the readers, see 'identity' skipping away like Till Eulenspiegel, humming that provocative little tune of Richard Strauss. Amsterdam, February 1965

H . C . RUMKE, M . D .

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I owe the theme of the present volume (and much more than that) to Prof. Rumke who, as a chairman of the Scientific Committee of the World Federation for Mental Health, participated in a symposium on identity in 1957. Discussions with Prof. Kamp proved to be very helpful; the material on which this book is based was partly collected under his care. I want to express my gratitude to Prof. Margaret Mahler and to Dr. Eissler for their kind permission to study their unpublished manuscripts. Mr. George S. Klein kindly gave me permission to insert Erikson's 'worksheet' in this book. My wife made the index.

CONTENTS

page Preface by H. C. Riimke Introduction I. History Prior to Erikson II. Erikson III. Intermezzo

vii 1 12 51 76

A. Phaethon

76

B. Osewoudt

83

IV. Literature after Erikson V. Identity and Roles VI. The Concept of Identity

96 129 157

A. Identity

157

B. Formants and identials

167

C. Introduction to the pathology of identity

178

Summary

193

Index

205

INTRODUCTION

The term 'identity' that we meet so frequently today in publications relating to the study of human behaviour has had such a lightning career that it must be regarded as being a member of the 'nouveau riche.' In a psychiatry that focussed attention on psychic experience, 'identity' led a poorish existence, at the most accounting for certain phenomena akin to depersonalisation (Jaspers, Schilder) or double personality. Growing interest in behaviour, function and role-enactment then made 'identity' shoot up like a miraculous tree, with Erikson as its brilliant gardener, and its use has now become so common that writers no longer feel obliged to define the term. It seems that 'identity,' like a member of the 'nouveau riche,' still has to learn that, in spite of its newly acquired wealth of meanings and perspectives, everything is not yet on sale for it. The present study must, therefore, be viewed as an attempt to provide some ideas about its limitations. Among the many fruits of this miraculous tree that we shall have to select are: the capacity to experience oneself as a continuity (Eissler); the notion of always being a separate being (Kramer); a comparison between self-observation and observation by others (Greenacre); a belief in the meaning of life (Wheelis); the 'true self' (Kramer, Wheelis), etc. Many authors use 'identity' as being synonymous with role (Strauss), essence (Kramer) or individuality. Becker 1 presents a concept in which seventeen different connotations are distinguished. Many such connotations can be viewed as answers to the question that Helen Lynd puts in the introduction to her book, namely 'Who am I? Where do I belong?'2 It will be clear that the kind of answer we get to the question 'Who am I?' depends on the kind of being about whom we are

2

THE C O N C E P T O F I D E N T I T Y

inquiring, and we can hardly think of a question to which more kinds of answers are possible. To the chemist I am an array of chemical compounds, a combination of tissues to the anatomist; to the sociologist I have nationality, profession, status and class. In fact, it is possible that in every particular set of statements that deserves the name 'theory'we could define a concept of identity which has a meaning for that theory, and that theory alone. Let us take, for example, the concept of identity in mathematics. When we make the statement 3 + 4 = 7, the identity we are establishing exists only as regards numerical value, and in many other respects 3 + 4 and 7 are unequal (e.g. the number of symbols used). Moreover, the fact that two items are equal seems not only to leave open the possibility that they are unequal in other respects, but even seems to imply that this will be so. Since it is our purpose to discover what meaning 'identity' could possibly have in the theory of personality, i.e. what kind of an answer a scholar of personality would give to the question 'Who am I?', we must concern ourselves with this theory. We shall then discover that there is not one such theory, but quite a number of them, and that each could have its own concept of identity. To simplify our task, we could make use of Gardner Murphy's threefold classification of theories of personality: '. . . at least three levels of complexity must be considered when confronting personality problems. Personality may be conceived, first, as an object or an event in a larger c o n t e x t . . . it is identifiable, strictly localized in time or space, and homogeneous . . . its internal structure need not be considered . . . this view is useful in many sociological and some psychological problems, especially those of a statistical character... for example, we may compare adults with children, men with women, Chinese with Japanese.' 3 At a second level of complexity, Murphy considers personality as having internal structure: . . . it is no longer homogeneous; it is organised.4 At the third level, it is no longer self-contained, but ' . . . could live only as long as a delicate relation obtained between its own structure and the outer structure of its habitat.. . the inner structure was supported and partly guided in its development by a field of external relations.' 5 As a matter of fact, no theory of personality fits exactly into this plan, but rather contains a specific mixture of the relevant levels. In role-theory, patterns of action are described irrespective of the persons who perform them, and the focus is on interaction rather than on personality structure; in psycho-analysis, on the contrary, interaction is never

INTRODUCTION

3

described independently from its precipitates in personality structure, even if many of its basic concepts are interactional by nature. Stack Sullivan's interpersonal theory of psychiatry as well as many others lie somewhere in between. If it is true (and we think it is) that the term 'identity' has as many meanings as there are theories which employ it, there is obviously a great danger of confusion. Conceptual meanings that are valid only at a certain level of complexity may be used erroneously on other levels. This is all the more so because a concept like 'identity,' that has points of contact with so many fields, may easily be viewed as a means to link up those fields, to act, as Schecter puts it,6 'as a conceptual link between the individual and his culture.' As regards the dangers in method this procedure entails, we may take to heart Allan Wheelis' warnings: '. . . any phenomenon which has existence and structure at multiple levels calls for multiple theories. The danger lies not in the multiplicity of theories, but in the mixing of levels of generalisation. The chemist who asserts that a handful of salt is part molecular and part crystalline is guilty of an egregious lapse. The analyst who explains the transference of an individual patient partly in terms of individual psychodynamics and partly in terms of the environing culture blunders equally. The individual and the social do not divide between themselves one realm of discourse; each is a separate and complete realm of discourse. . . etc.' 7 With this point in mind, we shall try to avoid the error of equating identity and role-enactment and realise that a psychological concept of identity must deal rather with the psychological representatives of roles. 'In psycho-analysis,' Wheelis says, 'the individual level of generalisation is always the relevant one.' 8 Since we are undertaking the task of delineating a concept of identity that may be useful in the psycho-analytic field, we must now make certain assertions concerning this field. The first is that psycho-analysis encompasses at least two fields, namely psycho-analytic treatment and psycho-analytic theory. To this well-known sub-division we should like to add another denoting the fact that psychoanalysis is practised by representatives of either the medical or the psychological profession. In the hands of a physician psycho-analysis designates in the first place a therapeutic procedure. It is determined, at least partially, by features which are common to all therapeutic procedures, which we shall henceforth call the 'medical sous-entendu,' namely the will to cure, the acceptance of the prescript 'nil-nocere,' clinging to a model

4

THE C O N C E P T OF I D E N T I T Y

of a therapeutic procedure that comprises the successive stages of investigation, diagnosis, therapy, theoretical considerations ensuing from the experience yielded by the previous stages, and their effect on future procedure and, last but not least, a concept of cure that consists in clearing the way for a 'vix medicatrix naturae' the omnipresence of which is taken for granted. How different must be the impact of psychological training on practitioners of psycho-analysis who belong to that profession! We are not competent to formulate a 'psychological sous-entendu' but consider that it is not too bold to assert that psychologists are inclined to focus their attention on normality rather than on disease and that, although their aims in treatment will be the same, they are educated to validate rather than to cure. As we shall try to demonstrate, this 'clash of disciplines' within psychoanalysis has given rise to much confusion and many misunderstandings. A whole set of the latter concerns the appreciation of psycho-analytic theory. Several authors 9> 10>11 have dealt with this problem, and much of the opposition to psycho-analysis takes the form of directing itself against theory, while therapeutic practice is appreciated. Some of these attacks could be characterised in that they overlook the fact that psycho-analytic theory has a double face, namely a 'medical' and a 'psychological' one. From the 'medical' point of view, it consists of a set of hypotheses that are not only arrived at from therapeutic experience, but at the same time from the condition under which therapy only becomes possible. Who would venture to sit behind a patient and wait for things to come without the support of theoretical knowledge about what might come and what could be its possible, tentative interpretation? Those who view psychoanalytic theory as the honey of truth, collected by research-minded bees from the material that practising drones provide, should realise that therapists are forced to cling to theoretical considerations, validated or otherwise, unless better ones are available. This does not, however, mean that no general rules can be stated about this procedure. While at the 'psychological' level of theory, where scholars are engaged in validating hypotheses to construct a psycho-analytic theory of personality, a statement is meaningful if some observation-statement can be deduced from it,12 we may require from a statement on the 'therapy-enabling' level of theory that it should have technical implications. In other words we may demand of a psycho-analytic hypothesis either that an experiment is imaginable that can contribute to its validation, or that an interpretation to a patient

INTRODUCTION

5

is imaginable, or some other technical issue that corresponds to the hypothesis in question. This alternative does not of course absolve us from the bounden duty of validation.13 The confusion of both theoretical levels has been promoted by Freud's omission to make the 'sous-entendu' explicit. We may imagine that he did not have any historian's ambitions in writing 'The Man Moses' and that he did not pretend to be a philosopher of religion in 'The Future of an Illusion,' but that he was simply pursuing his recently discovered mechanisms wherever he could get hold of them. He never said so however. The same can be stated as to extrapolations into normal psychic life. Up to the present authors fail to exert the care required for such a transition between different levels in theory. It is the 'medical sous-entendu' that has hampered rendering many connotations of Freud's statements explicit, for example, the connotation that, when he said that . . nature has given children to women as a substitute for the penis that has been denied them,' 14 he did not mean that children are 'nothing but' penis substitutes, but that certain types of neurotic behaviour by women towards their children could be understood, and cured!, by interpretations based on this unconscious equation. Freud says: '. . . if there are certain things to which hitherto psycho-analysis has not given adequate consideration, that is not because it has overlooked their effects or wished to deny their significance, but because it pursues a particular path which had not yet carried it so far.' 1 5 Nevertheless, while nobody would care to accuse a chemist stating that water is nothing but H2O of reductionism, or point out to him that water is also steam, or ice, or a medium to canoe on by moonlight, similar accusations are again and again made of psycho-analysis. It is our opinion that they result partially from the clash of the 'medical' and 'psychological' 'sous-entendu.' These are, of course, embedded in emotional constellations concerning which we shall not say anything more. Freud's confidence in human creativeness, his belief that the psychic 'vis medicatrix' would unfold its power as soon as the barriers that impeded it has been cleared away, has many implications of importance for us. In the first place, it made him (and should, we think, make practitioners of psycho-analysis who came after him) the modest craftsman who was satisfied with 'changing neurotic misery into ordinary misery.' The 'medical sous-entendu' implies that one should be aware that neurosis means misery, and that one feels the 'therapeutic imperative' to cure it where

6

THE C O N C E P T OF I D E N T I T Y

possible, a statement that does not seem superfluous at a time when a dictum such as 'be glad you're neurotic' can circulate without its author being torn to pieces by an infuriated crowd. The reproach that the analyst tends to cure his patient instead of directing his efforts towards making him happy is regularly encountered and denotes a profound anxiety about man's capacities to cope with the pains of the human deficit. Thus, Allen Wheelis fears that psycho-analytic treatment cannot provide patients with an identity if there is not one hidden in their souls.18 On the other hand, if we focus our attention on the ill rather than on the healthy, we must seriously consider whether our concepts of pathology may be turned into concepts of health, all the more so because our concepts of pathology owe their existence to the sequestering nature of neurosis. The ego demarcates the ill and experiences it as a corpus alienum in itself. Where this feeling is absent, it is the therapist's first task to arouse it. In health, the lines of demarcation are much less visible, and drive-ridden processes blend into a unity with the autonomous functions of the ego. The completely altered guise that human feelings and actions accordingly assume has induced many authors to criticise the basic concepts of psycho-analysis. Some of these criticisms could be summarised as alleging a 'compensatory view of personality' to the analytical model, namely that the sum total of all energy available is conceived of as fixed and that enrichment of a certain psychic entity must always imply impoverishment of another one. We can object that what we observe in patients are not their drives, but much more complicated issues, and that the investigation of this matter in healthy persons is much more difficult because the lines of demarcations are, as already mentioned, invisible. Generally, we nevertheless think that the criticism is valid and that the question must be envisaged as to whether the vicissitudes of neutralised or 'neutral' energy can be accounted for by the classical drive-model. We have spent a little time on these problems because we shall have to deal with them in extenso in the present study. Since identity is something that, to quote Erikson, I present to others, and that others present to me, the term can have meaning only as long as I reside amongst others. The others want to know where they are with me, they want to identify me, and I want them to be able to identify me. I present the cues to them, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes involuntarily, sometimes deliberately or even quite emphatically. I then assume a 'pose.' In any

INTRODUCTION

7

case, identity is assigned only to group-members by other group-members. From this point of view, it is a role. Whereas roles nevertheless design patterns of action irrespective of who perform them, we do mind who performs them. We want to know more about the relation of such processes as role-enactment and status assignment to individual structure. This is however by definition the task of social psychology. For our aim, namely to outline a concept of identity that can be useful in psychiatry, i.e. treatment goals and treatment procedures carried out with face-to-face contact, we shall have to move our focus somewhat in the direction of the individual proper and shall, though remaining at Murphy's third level of complexity, evaluate interaction by its precipitates into personality structure. We shall base ourselves on Freudian psycho-analysis and its concepts and try to find out whether our concept of identity deserves a place among them, a task indicated by Rapaport in his introduction to Erikson's selected papers.17 As a matter of fact, many previous scholars of psycho-analysis have considered problems akin to identity and some have felt that it surpassed all others in importance (Adler, Rank). Freud commented on Adler's concept of 'secundary gain from illness': '. . . the main emphasis falls on these easily verifiable and clearly intelligible connections, while the fact is altogether overlooked that on countless occasions the ego is merely making a virtue of necessity in submitting, because of its usefulness, to the very disagreeable symptom which is forced upon it, for instance, in accepting anxiety as a means to security. The ego is here playing the ludicrous part of the clown in a circus who by his gestures tries to convince the audience that every change in the circus ring is being carried out under his orders. But only the youngest of the spectators are deceived by him.' 18 We shall try to avoid the overestimation mentioned by Freud and at the same time do justice to some of Adler's ideas. If identity is something that is assigned by persons to other persons, the initial question to which we called 'identity' an answer, namely 'Who am I?,' acquires a strong connotation of: 'Who am I in the eyes of others?' This restriction serves our purpose of providing limitations to the concept of identity in two respects. Firstly, a personal relationship may transcend the assigning of identity. In addition to the people who want to identify me, who want to know what they are about with me, there may be some who don't care who I am, who tend to grasp something of me that is

8

THE C O N C E P T OF I D E N T I T Y

beyond my being somebody. The Dutch poet Achterberg has expressed this element in his relationship to his mother: Mijn moeder is een grijze vrijdagmorgen: zij moet de kamer doen; stof beeft; dan dweilen, voor het eten zorgen, zien wat van gisteren overbleef. Ik ben in haar liefde geborgen, die elk verraad der wereld overleeft: wie ik ook werd, wij eten overmorgen de koek die zij gebakken heeft.19 (My mother is a grey Friday morning. She has to clean the room; dust quivers; then mopping, preparing the food, seeing what remained from yesterday. I'm safely stowed in her affection which survives every betrayal by the world: whoever I became, we eat the day after tomorrow the cake she has baked.) In this part of a poem the mother's love transcends her son's identity. To her, he is obviously more than 'who he is.' We shall call what one is more than 'who he is' one's individuality and shall try to distinguish between identity and individuality consistently throughout this study. Does every relationship transcend the assignment of identity? Suffice it to say that there are relationships that do. Starting from there, we may, in slightly different words, state that the assignment of identity means a particular kind of reduction of a relationship. In a way, the people who want to identify me treat me as if I were a thing with properties (by which it is identifiable) rather than as a living object. They reify me. We shall put forward the idea that reification is an essential process in identityformation and differ in that respect from Schachtel,20 who considers it to be a characteristic of alienation. One cannot, of course, say that the one or the other is true, it merely being a matter of definition. We think, however, that if, as Schachtel does, we call the cases in which reification

INTRODUCTION

9

occurs 'alienated concepts of identity,' the non-alienated concept of identity loses all limitations. Sartre even thought that there is no escape from this process of reification in inter-human relationships. He stated this insofar as the look of another person turns me into an object, it turns me into something 'solidified,' something with a character, and so, in a sense, it takes away my freedom. Correspondingly, my look at another takes away, in the same way, the freedom of him who becomes an object for me. Sartre said '. . . if there is an Other, whatever or whoever he may be, whatever may be his relations with me, and without his acting upon me in any way, except by the pure upsurge of his being, then I have an outside. I have a nature. My original fall is the existence of the Other. Shame - like pride - is the apprehension of myself as a nature, although that very nature escapes me and is unknowable as such. Strictly speaking, it is not that I lose my freedom in order to become a thing, but my nature is, over there outside my lived freedom, as a given attribute of this being which I am for the Other.' 21 Sartre saw only two general lines of conduct open to us: we may either try to make ourselves the sort of object in the eyes of the other that we wish to be, or may try to take away the other's freedom. We could call this passive and active reification, and might venture the statement that pessimism led Sartre to the same views we were led to by focusing on psycho-pathology. Schachtel is constantly opposed to both points of view and accordingly we need not be surprised that he chooses different terms. If the others who identify me do so by reifying me into a thing with attributes, it will be clear that they must choose those attributes which are exclusively mine, and which are constantly mine. Thus, for instance, my finger-prints cannot belong to anybody but me and they never change. In the first chapter we shall see that these connotations of identity have a long history. We spoke of 'two restrictions,' brought about by the formula 'Who am I in the eyes of others?' and meant that not only a relationship can transcend the assignment of identity, but that apparently also the reverse can occur. A man can ask who he is, not only in front of others, but also opposite the cosmos, eternal values, God. He can transcend group values and decide where he wants to belong. Even when this decision bears the character of discovering a truth that had long been hidden, we shall not call it 'identity,' as some authors do, but restrict the term to the reverber-

10

THE C O N C E P T OF

IDENTITY

ation such a discovery has on what the authors are willing to assign because of it. Sometimes a man's commitment to a set of values may be accepted by those who share this commitment with him, but it can also happen that there are no others or that the others repudiate the transition. The clash between identity and individuality may then have a touch of tragedy, as was expressed in the words Baudelaire wrote about the poet: Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées, Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.2* (Exiled on the ground among the crowds His giant wings hamper his walking.) or, in the sad Jewish jokes that voice the idea that there is no escape from Jewish identity, whatever illusions one or other Jew may foster about it. The latter example may illustrate the point that the assignment of identity by people to other people is a matter of mutual interest to all persons concerned, and we shall cling to this element of mutuality as an essential trait of identity formation and assignment. The present study is mainly one of medical-psychological literature. In the first chapter we shall try to trace the historical roots of the concept of identity in order to provide an array of connotations that can make later developments more comprehensible. In the second we shall deal with Erikson's work on identity. The third chapter is intended as an interlude and to introduce our own trend of thought to the reader. We shall then review some of the more recent publications on identity from different fields of the study of personality and, finally, venture some tentative formulations on a concept of identity that could be operative within the limits of the 'relational system'23 of analytical psychiatry. In those last chapters we shall provide some clinical material to illustrate the points of view put forward. This material was acquired partly during a working period as a therapist at the Dutch Centre for Juvenile Psychiatry 'Zandwijk.' 24 Much inspiration was obtained from the work achieved by the Scientific Committee of the World Federation for Mental Health (under the care of Prof. Dr. H. C. Riimke), much more than could be mentioned in the references.

INTRODUCTION

11

REFERENCES 1.

BECKER A . M .

'Kindheit, Gesellschaft und Identität.' Psyche XI, 1 9 5 6 ,

536.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

LYND

H . On shame and the search for identity. London, 1958, 13. G. Personality. New York, 1947, 3.

MURPHY

Ibid. Ibid., 4. SCHECTER

choanalytic

D. E . Discussion of SCHACHTEL E . G . 'On the alienated conreview 46, 1959, 71.

128.

7. WHEELIS A . 'Psychoanalysis and identity.' Psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic review 46, 1959, 71. 8. Ibid. 9. WAELDER R. Basic theory of psychoanalysis. New York, 1960, 252-254. 1 0 . GRAY B . 'TWO misunderstandings of theory.' Psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic review 4 6 , 1 9 5 9 , 1 0 7 - 1 1 1 . 11. SUTTIE I . D . The origins of love and hate. London, 1935. 12. AYER A . J. Language, truth and logic. London, 1962, 11. 13. WAELDER R. op. cit., Introduction. 14. F R E U D S. 'On the transformation of instincts with special reference to anal erotism,' Collected papers II, 166. Quoted from LYND H. op. cit. 90 f. (See F R E U D S. Ges. Werke X, London, 1949, 405.) 15. F R E U D S. Quoted from WAELDER R . op. cit. 176. (See F R E U D S. Ges. Werke XIII, London, 1949, 237.) 16. WHEELIS A . The quest for identity. New York, 1 9 5 8 . 17. RAPAPORT D. Introduction to 'Identity and the lifecycle.' Psychological issues I, 1, 1959. 1 8 . F R E U D S. Quoted from WAELDER R . op. cit. 1 7 6 . (See F R E U D S. Ges. Werke X, 1949, 97.) 19. ACHTERBERG G. 'Moeder I . ' From Osmose. Rijswijk, 1941. 20.

SCHACHTEL E . G . op.

cit.

21. SARTRE J. P. Quoted from CRANSTON M. Sartre. London, 1962, 55. (See SARTRE J. P. L'être et le néant. Paris, 18th ed., 1948, 321.) 2 2 . BAUDELAIRE CH. 'L'albatros.' From Les Fleurs du Mal. 23. RUMKE H. C . 'Voorspellen in de geneeskunde.' Nederl. tijdschr. voor de psychologie en haar grensgebieden XVII, 1962, 334-346. 24. Director: Prof. Dr. L. N . J. Kamp.

I. HISTORY PRIOR TO E R I K S O N

Difference and sameness are basic concepts in human thought. There is scarcely any thought into which a being-different or a being-the-same is not woven in one way or another. It need not therefore surprise us that were thinking has itself become an object of thought (i.e. in philosophy), thinking about being different or the same is always present. Two forms should be distinguished here, namely thoughts about the being-the-same (the identity) of two or more named entities (e.g. the identity of thinking and being with the Eleatic philosophers), as well as thoughts concerning the concept 'identical' as such, as an abstraction of thought, with which we enter the realm of logic. For a sketch of the historical development of identity as a logical concept, we would refer to Goldel's exhaustive study.1 We find there a discussion 2 of the question as to whether the so called principium identitatis (symbolically represented by the formula A = A) was already present in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. It is certain that Aristotle laid down fundamental views concerning identity: 'to call things "identical" means to cause their unity to emerge in consideration of relational situations in which that thing can occur without losing its specific nature as the same thing.' 3 The above-mentioned principle itself is first postulated in late Scholasticism (Antonius Andreae, 4 Buridan 6 ), but was, according to Goldel, not greatly exploited, although people nevertheless seem to have occupied themselves extensively with it. It is then first found in the form A = A in Locke, who for the rest denies its meaning. The spirit of the New Age nevertheless clearly makes itself felt. While in ancient times and in the Middle Age people already knew such questions as 'is this blossoming tree the same as the bare piece of wood

H I S T O R Y P R I O R TO

ERIKSON

13

of last winter?,' in other words a naive objectivism, it becomes in Locke 'how do I know that the two different observations "blossoming tree" and "bare tree" derive from the same tree?' This is a manner of thinking which can be called critical subjectivism 6 and in which the knowing subject plays an ever more important role. The concept of identity becomes a concept from the doctrine of knowledge (Kant), while psychology begins here and there to appear (Hume). It is not important to us to follow the development traversed by the concept of identity in the science of logic in the previous century. The point is that people began to doubt more and more the value of the postulate A = A as a basic rule in logic and, on the other hand, began to give the postulate of identity a new content from the point of view of psychological thought: A is A, 7 i.e. thinking is thinking about something, is thinking something, this something being determined and, as it were, quantifiable. For this quantification, being the same as itself is a logical a priori. The struggle around these views was carried out fiercely and caused A. Lunemann, 8 for example, to coin the term of abuse 'Identiker' for those philosophising contemporaries that 'could not separate themselves' from the principium identitatis. Also in England the problem continued to be studied,9 with English local colour, for people still seem to be engaged in assailing Cartesian substantialism, in the footsteps of Locke. Thus A. E. Taylor 1 0 for example speaks of: '. . . the inveterate tendency to assume that identity, wherever it is asserted, means the presence of an identical material constituent. . .' If we read Taylor's argument, that, for example, a melody transposed into a different key preserves its identity, then we get the feeling that no important points of view have been won since Locke. If it can in this way be shown from a single example that the concept of identity can boast of a centuries-old history as a point of controversy in logic, the section which forms our real subject, namely the identity of the human personality, has a further root in the dim past, this being the history of the concept of person itself. Hirzel shows in a classical article 11 that with the older Greek writers ad)|aa means body, in other words also the whole person. Also KapSia, heart, ice