HALL, ARNETT, ERIKSON

Out of order
Readings: Hall, “Preface” to Adolescence; Arnett, “Adolescent Storm and Stress Reconsidered”
(on D2L); Erikson, “Prologue,” “Adolescence,” and “Beyond Identity”


G. Stanley Hall was a pioneer in psychology and a foundational figure in the defining of adolescence in a rapidly changing world. His views were very much in line with racist separations of humanity, yet he specialized in categorizing young people as savages in a similar way. According to Hall, people are built from the savagery of their youth out of the raw material of their genetic past. They needed discipline to do so.

He talks about the dangers of the adolescent period, this time of storm and stress, when youth are vulnerable to all sorts of temptations and dangers. He defines adolescence as from 14-24 and says his greatest desire is to help people avoid the potential dangers of this time. He wants to impose rules religion and structure on the lower races – rather black Africans or young Americans. To his mind, we are all savages needing to be tamed.

It’s easy to be critical of Hall’s outdated hierarchical and racialist views, but we mustn’’t lose sight of his attempt to address issues that had never before been tackled by the academy. And by attempting to define this age group, he also played an elemental role in how the world defines adolescence. Funny how supposed scientific observation and analysis can determine a group’s own self image. If society tells us we are entering a period of storm and stress, then I suspect that we will often strive to fulfill that definition.

In Jeffrey Arnett’s article, Adolescent Storm and Stress Reconsidered, he reviews Hall’s case for “storm and stress” and details more modern and multicultural takes on the concept. He writes a great deal about the Lamarckian theories of “memories and acquired characteristics,” as key elements of Hall’s philosophy. Again, as mentioned above, that we and our behavior is a product of our ancestors and their lives. This theory is discredited but one an understand its appeal in the near post-Darwinian era. Arnett defines storm and stress and breaks it into the categories of (1) conflict with parents, (2) mood disruptions, and (3) risk behavior. I particularly liked the Shakespeare quote:

At the beginning of a scene in "The Winter's Tale," Shake- speare (1623/1995) has an older man deliver a soliloquy about the youth of his day. "I would that there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest," he grumbles, "for there is nothing in between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting..." (Act III, Scene 3).

One can get carried away with all these definitions, but the difficulties of this period are built on observation and seem fairly predictable. As we move out of parental control and begin the immature process of searching for what we want in world of rules – we are bound to run into some challenges. The inexperienced often make bad decisions and early romance can be a deeply despairing thing. As we struggle to define ourselves and find our place in the world, is there any surprise that it results in some storm and stress?
Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson spends a great deal of time in his prologue wrestling with the concept of “identity crisis.” He is obviously also writing during a time – the late 1960’s – where upheaval and challenge to the accepted order are in the air. What is it to have an identity? And what is the reason that it can be such a complicated and complex struggle in the modern technological world?

“When it comes to central aspects of man’s existence, we can only conceptualize at a given time what is relevant to us for personal, for conceptual, and for historical reasons.”
Erik Erikson

Refreshingly, for a scientist, he resists the effort to establish universal rules – a la Hall – and says that the best we can do in attempting to understand an individual’s search for identity is that the process will change relative to time, place and culture. We do need to define ourselves, but the way that this happens is always in transition and that there are many ways that we bring ourselves into being.
As issues of gender and sexuality and race and identity have transformed in the last forty years, Erikson’s conclusions about our inability to pin down a formal structure of identity formation seem even more true. We strive to determine an identity, but the choices grow exponentially and the issues relate to far more than just adolescents. As we continue to struggle with an identity crisis, there is no longer a single linear way that it is to be done. Confusing, liberating or both?