identity crisis

English

Etymology

Coined by German psychologist Erik Erikson.

Noun

identity crisis (plural identity crises)

  1. (psychology) A crisis of personal identity.
    • 1976 February 7, Philip Gambone, “Coming Out: The Gay Identity Process”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 32, page 4:
      The postponement of homosexual behavior in men who know that they are homosexual can cause psychological anxiety and retard mature ego development. The same kind of identity crisis characteristic of heterosexual people in their twenties, in which one discovers, as Erik Erikson puts it, that he is "fatally overcommitted to what he is not," is found in the repressed homosexual.

Translations

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