A Clinical Approach of Identity Formation Explained

Learn about identity formation and its impact on navigating personal growth within a clinical context in healthcare.

Introduction

Many individuals deal with musculoskeletal, autoimmune, gut, or body issues that can affect their daily routine and how they perceive themselves when getting checked out by their doctors. Many healthcare professionals can help assess individuals with these pain-like symptoms causing overlapping risk profiles by creating a safe and positive experience with a clinical approach. By creating a secure environment, many individuals can have good experiences when pain-like issues are affecting their bodies. By delving into today’s article, we are going to look into identity formation, the four identity statuses, and the various areas of identity development.

Theories & Types of Identity Formation

Have they always had an identity? Many individuals do. Identity is a conglomeration of characteristics, values, and attributes that each person considers significant and use to characterize themselves. Many people develop their identities as they mature and gain knowledge about the world; identities are not forced upon them. People initially notice a significant change toward identity building and self-exploration throughout adolescence.

Identity formation is a major concern in many theories of adolescent development. Erikson’s 1968 seminal theory of developmental phases, for instance, emphasized identity creation as the main sign of effective adolescent development. Teens who are unable to define who they are may have role confusion, which suggests that they need to do more self-discovery and are uncertain about their place in society.

The Four Identity Statuses

Many healthcare providers will hear their patients describe identity formation during adolescence as it involves decision points and commitments regarding belief systems (e.g., religion, politics) and occupations. The four modes of reacting to late identity crises during the adolescent phase were described, measured, and validated so that individuals could figure out their identity status. (Marcia, 1966)  The four described identity statuses are:

• Foreclosure: An individual commits to an identity without exploring options.
• Identity diffusion: When individuals neither explore nor commit to any identities.
• Moratorium: A state in which individuals actively explore options but have not made commitments.
• Identity achievement: When individuals have explored different options and made identity commitments.

For example, teens may commit to an identity without exploring if they are content with the values, culture, and religion they were raised in. Teens in foreclosure status may adopt large parts of their parents’ identities or the identity parents have put them on. However, when teens achieve identity, they can explore the world for themselves and decide how they identify due to those experiences. This causes them to relinquish their claims of infantile sources of gratification, thus renouncing lingering fantasies of competence. (Marcia, 1967) At the same time, many people have experienced things that led to a crisis. The thing is that a crisis doesn’t necessarily mean a negative event; it’s simply branching out from what’s comfortable to discover who they are.

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Various Areas of Identity Development

As a stage in the adolescent life cycle, identity development happens to many people. For many, the search for identity begins in the teenage years. During these years, adolescents are more open to taking on different behaviors and appearances to discover who they are. In an attempt to find their own identity and discover who they are, adolescents tend to cycle through several identities to find one that suits them best. Multiple factors like family life, environment, and social status can make it difficult to develop and maintain an identity. Some studies suggest that this process might be more accurate to identity development rather than formation but confirm this is a typical change process in people’s thoughts about themselves.

Several different areas of identity development are described:

• Religious identity: Teens’ religious views are similar to those of their families. Many may question specific customs, practices, or ideas in their parents’ faith, but a few may completely reject their families’ religion. This is due to the dynamic of the parent-adolescent relationship with religion and exerts positive effects on adolescent adjustments. (Kim-Spoon et al., 2012)
• Political identity: Adolescents’ political identity is influenced by their parents’ political beliefs. In the 21st century, a new trend shows decreased political affiliation among young adults. However, many adolescents tend to be more liberal than their elders on social issues. This is due to many adolescents encountering events that trigger their civic interest and challenge their beliefs and moralities. (Stattin et al., 2017) Like in other aspects of identity formation, adolescent individuals are predicted by their parents’ involvement and current events when there is an interest in politics.
• Vocational identity: Adolescents in earlier generations envisioned themselves working in a particular job and often worked as apprentices or part-time in such occupations. This is a rare case for many people in today’s world. Vocational identity is also related to ego identity by correlating with a successful transition from school to work, allowing individuals to be more confident in their decision-making ability, especially in environmental ambiguities. (Koo & Kim, 2016) Still, vocational identity takes a bit longer to develop since many workplaces require specific skills and knowledge that require additional education or are acquired on the job. Additionally, many job opportunities held by teens are not in occupations many will seek as adults.
• Ethnic identity: Ethnic identity refers to how many individuals come to terms with who they are based on ethnicity or racial ancestry. According to the U.S. Census 2012, Americans under 18 are from historically marginalized ethnic groups. Many people who identify under BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) have discovered their ethnoracial identity as an important part of their identity formation as teens.
• Gender identity: Gender identity involves an individual’s sense of gender and can be similar to or different from their biological sex regardless of age group. Gender identity greatly influences many adolescents during these years of self-discovery and can impact other areas of identity, like religion and politics.

Self-Concept

The two primary facets of identity formation are self-esteem and self-concept. The core notion of self-concept is the individual’s capacity to describe their views and convictions with assurance, constancy, and stability throughout their lifetime. Cognitive changes throughout the early stages of adolescence lead to increased self-consciousness, understanding of other people’s opinions and views, thinking about hypothetical future scenarios, and weighing many alternatives at once. Consequently, a lot of teenagers will stop using straightforward, tangible, and universal self-descriptions when they are younger. Children use physical characteristics like gender, hair color, and whether or not they are quick to identify themselves.

While their decisions may have long-term effects or possibilities, many teenagers can imagine many “possible selves” they may become. During this exploration, adolescents may accept or reject traits and behaviors, which might lead to sudden changes in how they show themselves. At the same time, when combining their degree of identification with their combinational operation, both men and females exhibit strong positive connections. (Wagner, 1987) Moving the real self toward the ideal self is what this, in turn, means. The perfect self differs from person to person because many aspire to be the person they want to be, while many others dread becoming the person they do not want to be. Though it may also be motivating due to consistent action with the beliefs and differentiation from the dreaded potential selves, this can cause discomfort for individuals.

We can explore and find our ideal and frightened selves concurrently. Many young individuals may observe characteristics in their family members, friends, or other community members and begin to consider their likes and dislikes simultaneously to develop their own identities. As teenagers understand the factors that shape their behavior and how others see them, they become more differentiated in their self-concept and identify their characteristics when questioned about them. When kids begin the seventh or ninth grade, distinction seems to be completely formed around the middle of puberty. One of the most prevalent causes of discomfort in modern times is realizing that one’s self-concept has conflicting content. However, many teenagers might still gain from it since it encourages them to experiment and grow.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem constitutes the other facet of identity creation. Self-esteem is, by definition, a person’s perceptions and emotions about their identity and self-concept. According to several ideas, having a strong desire to preserve, safeguard, and improve one’s self-esteem is part of it. Contrary to common opinion, there is no proof that these theories—which indicate a sharp decline in teenage self-esteem—are accurate. Male and female self-esteem differs from one another, with females experiencing higher levels of self-esteem when they have supportive friendships. Yet, women experience poor self-esteem when they are unable to find a companion who shares their hobbies and interests or when they are unable to get the approval of their friends.

Male self-esteem is distinct. Men are more focused on defining authority and forming and expressing their independence regarding self-esteem. As a result, males may effectively use the influence of their friends and peers to have strong self-esteem. Male poor self-esteem, however, may be further exacerbated by a lack of romantic abilities or even the inability to sustain another person’s attachment.

Conclusion

When evaluating the pain-like sensations impacting people’s bodies, many medical professionals may provide a secure environment and a good experience by using a clinical approach to identity construction. Simultaneously, recognizing the significance of identity development may foster positive relationships with patients by offering a range of options in their personalized treatment programs to enhance their health and overall well-being.

Injury Medical & Functional Medicine Clinic

We associate with certified medical providers who understand the importance of identity formation when assessing individuals dealing with various pain-like symptoms within their bodies. When asking important questions to our associated medical providers, we advise patients to implement small changes to their daily routine to reduce the pain-like symptoms associated with body pains. Dr. Alex Jimenez, D.C., utilizes this information as an academic service. Disclaimer.

References

Kim-Spoon, J., Longo, G. S., & McCullough, M. E. (2012). Parent-adolescent relationship quality as a moderator for the influences of parents’ religiousness on adolescents’ religiousness and adjustment. J Youth Adolesc, 41(12), 1576-1587. doi.org/10.1007/s10964-012-9796-1

Koo, H.-Y., & Kim, E.-J. (2016). Vocational Identity and Ego Identity Status in Korean Nursing Students. Asian Nursing Research, 10(1), 68-74. doi.org/10.1016/j.anr.2015.11.001

Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego-identity status. J Pers Soc Psychol, 3(5), 551-558. doi.org/10.1037/h0023281

Marcia, J. E. (1967). Ego identity status: relationship to change in self-esteem, “general maladjustment,” and authoritarianism. J Pers, 35(1), 118-133. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1967.tb01419.x

Stattin, H., Hussein, O., Ozdemir, M., & Russo, S. (2017). Why do some adolescents encounter everyday events that increase their civic interest whereas others do not? Dev Psychol, 53(2), 306-318. doi.org/10.1037/dev0000192

Wagner, J. A. (1987). Formal operations and ego identity in adolescence. Adolescence, 22(85), 23-35. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3591499

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