Freud says, “Whatever you say you are, you are not.” Adam Phillips says that identity is a “self-cure for a feeling of exclusion” and puts us forever in a position to defend that identity.
Identity is thus false to begin with, and on top of that, takes effort and will to manage and reproduce. Both Freud and Phillips seem to say: What’s the point?
How can we metabolize or digest these pronouncements (or warnings?) in a culture that seems synonymous with the branded self, or the profilicity of our brand?
In a Mental health context, isn’t this a recipe for rampant confusion—doesn’t it seem that a stable sense of self equates with a stronger ego, better choice of mate, career, and overall sense of direction? If we go to therapy, instead of this, isn’t what we’re in for, after all, a better sense of who we are, a richer sense of our real or true identity?
The Development of Identity
Our identity develops, as Phillips argues, out of an experience of exclusion, of being left out. In the Freudian story, we are left out of our parents’ lives in many ways as children. We cannot be as close to our parents as we wish. While loving parents may tuck us in every night and transport us to all activities, they inevitably shut us out by going to bed without us. This is a kind of “leaving out” that marks our first major exclusion—we are excluded from our parents’ intimate lives. To a child, this feels like a failure, and the first of others. Our parents will inevitably fail us in some way. (And this is OK.)
This is the first identity crisis. If we cannot be everything in the eyes of Mom or Dad, who are we then? What might gain their attention, or what might fill the lack of their attention to us?
This can take any number of routes. We may take up an interest in sports, or academics, or drugs, or pornography, or voyeurism. These interests may produce certain kinds of attention that come to reflect who we are (the looking glass theory). We see that winning swim races gets certain kinds of attention from others: interest, envy, and admiration. It feels good, so we lean into that identity. We proudly reflect back to others what we receive from them.
Or, conversely, we take up an interest in something more antisocial like pornography. Our parents may criticize us for this, or we may read online that this is bad for our self-esteem or future love lives. This can produce a kind of perverse or masochistic pleasure, a dark identity. It can feel good to be at the margins, to be othered. We are doubly excluded and can take pleasure in this or convert this exclusion into an identity like an incel.
Post-Adolescence and the Second Identity Crisis
At some point, this preferred identity becomes exhausted or outdated. We outgrow an attachment to sports or pornography and find ourselves drawn to other interests, other people. We find that these former identities no longer hold currency in new circles we wish to join.
Or the identity itself demands too much work to produce and reproduce. We become too identifiable to ourselves. We can feel like we are performing a version of ourselves, like we have been typecast by central casting. We tell the same stories, the same jokes, and perform the same party tricks or stunts.
Our version of ourselves has become too narrow, and this narrowness has limited our social roles and spheres.
Sometimes this appears as a crisis of sorts: a mid- or quarter-life crisis. A shift in vocation or partners may be in order. We may sever ourselves from old friends, relocate, or go “no contact” with certain members of the family. We may feel like giving up, and it can feel like exhaustion or even depression. But what might be in need of giving up is only the performed version of ourselves that has become obsolete. We may discover new vitality or energy on the other side of such a dissolution. It wasn’t that we were tired of life, but we were just tired of that life.
Activating a dormant or undiscovered part of ourselves can be very enlivening and energizing. But it also takes risks and courage.
Perhaps we need a new language to present ourselves that is not rooted in a notion of identity. Identity is inescapable, but so is its dissolution and dismantling.
What can we gain if we risk letting go of an earlier version of ourselves? What can we lose if we cling to a preferred and narrow version?
