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Industry: Email Alert RSS Feed15 WARRIOR IDENTITY PROBLEM
Adolescent Psychiatry, 2004 by Sugar, Max
This chapter proposes warrior identity problem (WIP) as a new diagnostic category and subcategory of identity problem. Identity problem occurs in late adolescence due to interference in identity development and an absence of character synthesis. WIP appears to develop as a solution to identity problem in some individuals. Because I have observed WIP only in combat veterans of military service, my main focus will be on WIP in relation to the military. The extent to which this condition occurs among the nonmilitary is uncertain, but it seems likely that it may be found in other populations of young adults.
LITERATURE REVIEW
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Erikson (1959) posited identity formation as a lifelong, evolving configuration consisting of the integration of personal traits, assets, experiences, identifications, defenses, and "consistent roles" (p. 116). Identity problem is a diagnostic category listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). According to DSM-IV (APA, 1994) identity problem is to be used "when the focus of clinical attention is uncertainty about multiple issues relating to identity, such as long-term goals, career choice, friendship patterns, sexual orientation and behavior, moral values, and group loyalties" (p. 685). DSM-III recognized identity disorder, and the change from a disorder to a problem represented a shift in the way of thinking about this condition. (I have more to say about this later.)
Late Adolescent Development
Some attention to late adolescence may offer an understanding of the developmental background for identity problem and WIP. The attainment of formal operations in some adolescents allows them to think and plan in a new trial-action, less limited fashion than in the preceding stage of concrete operations. However, formal operations is present in only 20% to 35% of late adolescents (Dulit, 1972).
During adolescent development, a second individuation occurs, which implies that individuals cease to attribute their difficulties to parents or others and begin to assume responsibility for their own actions (Bios, 1968). The reorganization stage of the normal adolescent mourning process is going on simultaneously in late adolescence. This involves wishes to be free of parental and other authorities' restrictions, testing one's omnipotentiality, achieving a sense of fidelity and commitment to self and object choice, and the need to explore and manage reactions in relation to same and opposite-sex individuals, while still adjusting to object loss, and with a less-fluid superego (Sugar, 1968).
According to Bios (1968), the end of adolescence requires personality consolidation, which involves character formation and the resolution of four developmental preconditions. These preconditions are the second individuation process, dealing with the residual trauma of childhood, developing ego continuity, and establishing a sexual identity.
The late adolescent has tasks to complete before adulthood begins. These are consolidation, separating from parents, identity formation, achieving genital primacy and a sexual identity, and developing a time perspective (Buhler, 1968; Neugarten, 1969); making a commitment to a life goal and development of intimacy and friendships (Erikson, 1959, p. 122-132); and the further development and harmonizing of the ego, superego, and ego ideal. Issues from previous developmental stages need to be reworked, refined, and harmonized. Identity formation is the major psychological development in late adolescence and involves a sense of self and competence that harmonizes, and has continuity, with the community and culture.
Identity Foreclosure in the Military
In an earlier publication (Sugar, 2003), I described the modal late adolescent in the military; and a review of this description may help to explain the salience of adolescent identity issues for some youth in the military. An enlistee is likely to have an average (or lower) IQ, concrete thinking, few coping skills, an incomplete education, few (or absent) goals for the future, and often a foreclosed identity. Such adolescents usually have not attained intimacy; a time perspective; or a sense of identity or harmony between ego, superego, and id. Neither have they achieved consolidation of personality or character or a sense of independence or autonomy. They have increased dependency, decreased learning opportunities, and little capacity for self-observation. In addition, they have had little or no opportunity to try out different ego ideals.
Many enlistees are told, "The army will make a man out of you." In other words, an identity will be given them, and a foreclosed one at that, by the army. A song among enlisted troops is, "Kiss me good night, sergeant-major. Tuck me in my little bed . . ." It expresses hostile dependency wishes to authority, with the sergeant in the maternal role and the platoon or company commanding officer in the paternal role. The platoon (or company) becomes a substitute family, with the authority figures in the parental role and the other platoon members as brother warriors.
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