Talk:Identity crisis

...identity crises are expected to be more common now than 30 years ago, when Erikson formed his theory.

"30 years ago" is a moving target; it would be good to replace this with a specific year or range of years. Rbean 20:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

first two sentences are completely incoherent; first sentence talks of healthy development and second sentence goes on as if the one that preceeded it was about abnormal development. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.183.138.220 (talk) 12:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

It isn't an "identity crisis" it is a stage theory of identity development that involves resolution of a "crisis", or conflict, at each of the 8 stages across the lifespan.

That the "identity crisis" starts at adolescence is absurd, since the point of all this is that identity develops THROUGHOUT the lifespan.

The reference cited is not peer-reviewed, and appears to be a student column (note that Marcia is spelled Maria in the text of the cited article).

I'm removing the article and placing it below until someone takes the time to write a proper article. This is all wrong, and written in a colloquial style.

Here's what's removed: does this really work

Erik Erikson, the psychologist who coined the term identity crisis, believes that the identity crisis is the most important conflict human beings encounter when they go through eight developmental stages in life. The identity is "a subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image. As a quality of unself-conscious living, this can be gloriously obvious in a young person who has found himself as he has found his communality. In him we see emerge a unique unification of what is irreversibly given--that is, body type and temperament, giftedness and vulnerability, infantile models and acquired ideals--with the open choices provided in available roles, occupational possibilities, values offered, mentors met, friendships made, and first sexual encounters." (Erikson, 1970.)

According to Erikson's stages, the onset of the identity crisis is in the teenage years, and only individuals who succeed in resolving the crisis will be ready to face future challenges in life. But the identity crisis may well be recurring, as the changing world demands us to constantly redefine ourselves. Erikson suggested that people experience an identity crisis when they lose "a sense of personal sameness and historical continuity". Given today's rapid development in technology, global economy, dynamics in local and world politics, identity crises are expected to be more common now than 30 years ago, when Erikson formed his theory.

If you find yourself (again) in an identity crisis, you can look at seven areas of difficulty in which to work towards a resolution.

• Time Perspective
  Can you distinguish immediate gratification from long-term goals? Have you learnt to balance between jumping at opportunities as soon as they are presented to you and working steadily and patiently towards your long-term goal?
• Self-Certainty
  Do you feel consistent in your self-image and the image you present to others?
• Role Experimentation
  Have you tried different roles in search of the one that feels right to you?
• Anticipation of Achievement
  Do you believe that you will be successful in what you choose to do -- whether your role is at the work front or home front?
• Sexual Identity
  Do you feel comfortable being a male or a female, and dealing with others as such?
• Leadership polarization
  Are you able to become both a leader and a follower, whichever is called for in a given situation?
• Ideological convictions
  Have you found a set of basic social, philosophical, or religious values that your outlook on life can be based upon?

Jedre 00:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

--My response-- "Erik Erikson, the psychologist who coined the term identity crisis, believes that the identity crisis is the most important conflict human beings encounter when they go through eight developmental stages in life."

• This portion needs citation for verification that Erik Erikson coined this term.
• What factors contribute to this being "the most important conflict" in the eight stages? Erikson's stages are theoretical, not necessarily factual so this needs to be implemented with supporting positions. E.g. What psycholgists, psychotherapits, or medical researchers aggree with Erikson's stages, and why?
• Are there other identity crisis theories presented by other psychologists, besides Erikson? This article is too narrowly focused on Erikson's point of veiw, therefore it is not neutral.
• "If you find yourself (again) in an identity crisis, you can look at seven areas of difficulty in which to work towards a resolution." Thankfully, This was deleted. Wikipedia is not an advice column in which to assertain that the readers examine a theory about identity. Wikipedia, though, should explain what researchers (and others) say or write about that theory.

Also I agree with Jedres notations above. -- Wolfpeaceful —Preceding undated comment added 15:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC).Reply

"Description: The identity is "a subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image. As a quality of unself-conscious living, this can be gloriously obvious in a young person who has found himself as he has found his communality. In him we see emerge a unique unification of what is irreversibly given--that is, body type and temperament, giftedness and vulnerability, infantile models and acquired ideals--with the open choices provided in available roles, occupational possibilities, values offered, mentors met, friendships made, and first sexual encounters (Erikson, 1970)."

According to Erikson's stages, the onset of the identity crisis is in the teenage years, and only individuals who succeed in resolving the crisis will be ready to face future challenges in life. But the identity crisis may well be recurring, as the changing world demands us to constantly redefine ourselves. Erikson suggested that people experience an identity crisis when they lose "a sense of personal sameness and historical continuity". Given today's rapid development in technology, global economy, dynamics in local and world politics, one might expect identity crises to recur more commonly now than even thirty years ago, when Erikson formed his theory ^{[citation needed]}."

-- Wolfpeaceful208.119.72.6 (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

I added the bibliographic entry for Erickson's "Idenitty Crisis" article first appearing in 1970 after the summit in 1969. Apologies for diverging from the bibligraphic style by using using citation template rather than a hand coded entry. a) I did know the proper format of the citation in this style to cite an article in a scholarly journal so I leveraged the template to do it for me. b) Seemed better to have an accurately cited source displaying in a correct format than to not have one. -- justinhaynes — Preceding undated comment added 05:38, 14 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Existential crisis

• Identity Crisis - Theory and Research

Jedre 00:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

Upon searching for a source for attribution for the origin of the term Identity crisis I discovered that this article has been lifted from [http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/identitycrisis.htm%7C Identity Crisis - Theory and Research By Kendra Cherry, About.com Guide] I♥ ♪♫ (talk) 13:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Identity crisis (psychology) → Identity crisis – Primary topic. Most of the terms on the disambiguation page are derived from this usage. Marcus Qwertyus 10:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Support, since there's no one dominant pop culture (that is, usage as an episode or song or album or movie title) usage. But I don't believe that being the source usage (i.e., Marcus' "most of the terms ... are derived from this usage") should be a determining factor. Powers ^T 13:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

As it stands, the article sounds like it was copy and pasted from some other website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.31.56.145 (talk) 15:41, 25 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

I would hazard a guess at Psychology Today, as it forms the vast majority of the references. In my admittedly minimal experience, Psychology Today doesn't seem like a very credible source for this information, seeing as it is a magazine before it is a scientific journal. As such, it may be a reasonable idea to rewrite the article using information from peer-reviewed content and well-known encyclopedias as the core sources. The article is quite small, so it is no major loss to give it a new, more solid foundation in order to meet quality standards. 68.148.86.34 (talk)

The section talking about the Marcian theory takes up a pretty significant portion of the article, but it's not included in the introduction. Shouldn't it be added so that the Marcian theory will be included in the article at first glance?Chloereuter (talk) 04:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

The introduction is confusing and not consistent with the material that is presented, for example not including anything about Marcian theory. This page might not even need the information about the Marcian Theory since this page is about Erik Erikson's theory of identity crisis. Those belong on a different page that pertains to them. This page also needs more information about what an identity crisis actually is and not just about how it gets resolved. It needs more recent sources and images that relate to identity crisis.205.185.99.25 (talk) 03:18, 3 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Including the need to focus on the topic; identity crisis, and not on a life stage, namely adolescence. An adolescent crisis may be stereotypical, but hardly universal. People experience identity crises pre and post-adolescence.

And I can't abide semantic nonsense like "first sexual experiences". How many first sexual experiences can one have? Perhaps English was not Erikson's first language. A sub-editor should have emended it to "early sexual experiences". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.151.210.84 (talk) 22:50, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 November 2022 and 16 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lacii25 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Ohaew04.

— Assignment last updated by Ctysick (talk) 13:04, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply