Occupation and Identity

In psychoanalytic terms, Identity is the integration of libidinal energy into the ego, making constructive use of those abilities innately endowed and opportunities offered by socialized roles. Part and parcel of this process are finding an occupation suited to one's natural gifts and talents, as well as to learned skills and knowledge.

Erickson might or might not argue that one must find an occupation before establishing an identity, since identity involves role definition, both psychosexual and vocational. Erickson states:

The growing and developing youths, faced with this physiological revolution within them, and with tangible adult tasks ahead of them are now primarily concerned with what they appear to be in they eyes of others as compared with what they feel they are, and with the question of how to connect the roles and skills cultivated earlier with the occupational prototypes of the day (Erickson, 1963, p. 261).

In addition to being compatible with innate and learned abilities, congruence of occupation and identity results when the vocation provides psychodynamic rewards, or need fulfillment, for the person.

E.S. Bordin conceptualized occupational identity as related to motives stemming from the individual's developmental history, and made specific reference to Erickson's life-span formulation of the stages (or "crises") in the development of a healthy personality. According to Bordin, a person makes a career choice based on their own needs, and it is a developmental process. He asserts: "Our pivotal assumption is that insofar as he [or she] has freedom of choice an individual tends to gravitate toward those occupations whose activities permit [expression of] preferred ways of seeking gratification and of protecting himself from anxiety" (Bordin, 1968, p. 427).

Once again, quoting Erickson: "This sense of ego identity, then is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others, as evidenced in the tangible promise of a 'career' (Erickson, 1963, p. 261).

In the mature adult, identity is usually inexorably tied to vocational choice or "calling". That vocation, as it defines and provides identity to the person, may or may not provide an economic livelihood, and in some cases might even come under the category of "avocation" (as in the case of voluntary service). The two can not be separated. Strictly speaking, a person without a vocation, or some regular means to occupy time, has not yet successfully integrated the energies of life in any productive fashion.

REFERENCES

Bordon, E.S. (1968). Psychological Counseling, 2d ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Erickson, Erik H. (1963). Childhood and Society. New York: Norton & Co.

Thomas S. Rue, M.A., NCC
June 16, 1991

The University of Iowa - College of Education
Psychological and Quantitative Foundations 31:163
The Adolescent and Young Adult

[ INDEX ]