The Elusive Search for Identity
By Gary Reece, Ph.D.
I recently concluded writing a book about the effects of trauma on children in the foster/adopt system. It was a great learning experience for me as I pursued a life-long interest in Identity, how it is formed and what happens when we undergo life crises precipitated by trauma. In fact this theme was the topic of my doctoral dissertation: The Dialectics of Identity. And here I am now, years later, still consumed by the same questions. The research I did for my book as well as working with severely traumatized children has been an illuminating as well as a disturbing experience. I believe I have found, surprisingly, not only comassion, but some understanding as well in the experiences of traumatized children. I have come to believe that we learn a great deal about the human condition when we gaze through the optics of a microscope focused on individuals in crisis. Having worked as a therapist for years with individuals who came to me shattered, unaware of why their lives were so dysfunctional. This has given me a rich source of understanding as well. When I explored the experience of children who were undergoing the trauma of living in abusive and neglectful homes and then being removed and placed in a dysfunctional system which abused them further I learned even more.
The questions these experiences raised for me were: how can adults do these things to children? What is the impact of this behavior on their embryonic sense of self? How do they survive such ordeals? What can we learn about the long term impact of trauma on human development, particularly in regard to the self? Finally, how can we help grown individuals heal their fragmented, wounded, distorted selves.
In popular culture the self has many faces. We use it so casually. For example: what does it mean to say, “just be yourself?” I have to find myself? I don’t know who I am! To thine own self be true! He betrayed himself? Self-transformation. The enlightened self. Who are you? Apparently there are true selves, false selves, fully actualized selves, secret, shadow selves, monster selves, narcissistic selves, crippled selves, self-destructive selves, implicit selves, dark and hated selves, grandiose, and borderline selves. It would seem the self has many manifestations, and the word itself is sometimes used in place of the soul, spirit, and personality. It can also undergo crisis, be transformed, enlightened, lost, buried, split, found, and saved.
I sometimes amuse myself by thinking about what would happen in the morning when I confront myself in the mirror if each time I saw a different person. Just how disturbing would that be? If there is one thing we all count on is the continuity of being ourselves, whoever that is. Our personal history, life story, narrative seems to be what holds all of this together. Through my story, I know who I am. But what does it mean to know oneself? How did I come to be this person thrown into this particular time and place in this vast universe? I am defined by many things, my roles and public persona, the sum of all my attachments, or am I just the result of a bunch of electricity firing in limbic system of my brain? Does it convey any meaningful information to tell you that I am tall, Caucasian, 70, heterosexual male, American, Democrat, who lives in California and has a Ph,D. in Psychology, divorced, father, grandfather, likes sports, and a Laker fan? Or does the list of illnesses of age I have acquired add to the identity package. It certainly helps my doctor to know me. This information is probably useful in categorizing me, but does it tell you anything about who I am? Does where I was born and raised help? Who my friends are? My recreational activities, hobbies? Pollsters, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers all have weighed in on this topic. Each contributes a piece to the puzzle. But the whole remains elusive, mysterious. Who is this person asking these questions and writing and seeking answers?
I think the search for identity, the self, is more elusive than this conglomerate, this amalgam of traits can tell us. Just as a Gestalt is more than the sum of its parts. In my quest, I find myself fascinated by individuals and their stories. I want them to tell me who they are. As I hear their stories, where they are in their journey makes sense. It is the history, the story, the narrative that reveals the inner, mysterious, core self. So I have become a collector of stories. I am fascinated, I love to have people tell me their stories. It is in these meetings, these intimate moments that I get a glimpse behind the curtain. Some of these stories I have put in my book.
The stories I have collected in my book are told in their own words. From difficult beginnings, their lifelong struggles have been a search for identity, for an integrated, coherent, cohesive life story that makes sense to them. The very roots of our sense of self I have found, are in our families of origin and early attachments and if we are torn from that family, uprooted and displaced, how can we possibly find a secure sense of self?
For many children in the system, their search is often an unspoken question, a lived-with knowledge of being different from the moment of placement. Nevertheless, regardless of circumstance, theirs is a singular search, an imperative to discover the what, how, why and finally, who, in their elusive search for identity: to make the implicit self a more conscious and whole self.
What is remarkable is that as one courageous person tells his story, it shines a little more light in the darkness, and illuminates the path for others who find themselves on a similar quest. Then, as I discovered, these individual adventurers find each other and for them it becomes like finding lost family; someone who understands what it is like.
Speaking of finding lost family, recently I had the privilege of attending a support group for individuals who belonged to a triad—Adoptees, Foster Care children and Parents. This group is provided by a former colleague with whom I have worked for the past 10 years. It was hosted by Vista Del Mar, a residential facility for adolescents and children in the system.
Jeanette Yoffe, the sponsor of this group, is a survivor of the New York child welfare system and grew up in foster care and was adopted. She has an understandable passion for her work, and it is no surprise that she has devoted her career as a psychotherapist to dealing with foster-adopt issues. She has created a public forum that meets once monthly called Adopt a Salon. At this particular meeting (during National Foster Care awareness month), she decided to share her story, which she previously presented as a one-woman stage show. She developed the show when she was an actress and with the help of her husband, a videographer, developed it into a video.
She hosts a free support group for all members of the Adoption Constellation on the first Wednesday of every month in Los Angeles. the attendant residual problems in adulthood. The monthly group that she facilitates told their stories after seeing Jeanette’s video. Like survivors of a ship wreck washed up on a deserted island, they told harrowing tales of abandonment, confusion, being lost in the system, living with guilty secrets, and seeking lost family and home with an almost primal urge to reunite with their original family.
Many were confused about their origins, trying to sort out myth from illusion and their own fantasies about the families they had lost. Searchers all, they struggled with the mixed feelings of wanting to know and not wanting to know. They live with a free-floating anxiety of uncertainty about themselves, their place in the world, a fantasy world of what might have been, and the illusions of finding paradise and reunification with a mythical family.
One woman described a group she had gravitated to as misfits, outsiders and aliens. Another divulged that he felt like an actor miscast in a play who did not know the plot or his lines. Each time they would gain a tidbit, glean a bit more of their history, it would have the portent of an information time bomb. Sometimes overwhelmed by what was discovered, they would shut down and try to integrate some new bit of information. One man found his father who did not want to be found. Not having family leaves a person feeling guilty, ashamed, and severely conflicted about their right to find their families. The bottom line of the search is a search for coherent identity. A room full of survivors, some 30 individuals, responded to Jeanette’s story with questions, and tears: identifying and telling their stories. As I listened to them talk, I had the feeling of coming upon a lost tribe, the remnants of a lost civilization who had all washed up on the shore. Unknowingly, they were unconsciously attracted by the Trauma Bond of the implicit self. They were survivors and refugees, all with amazing stories--a modern-day Gilligan’s island.
These profound identity issues, revealed in stories, revolve around core dynamics: longing for home and family, the ambivalent nature of the search, wanting to know, and not wanting to know, conflicted loyalties, fear of what might be discovered, dealing with feelings of abandonment, the trauma of placement, the shock to self-esteem of not being wanted by the original family, grief and loss, the rising tide of powerful emotions of shame, guilt and fear, as well as the difficulty of making conscious the dissociated and unconscious implicit self and integrating the unfolding narrative into one’s current sense of self. Richard Rose writes:
This powerful, regulating, rewarding quality of belonging to a group, a family, a community and culture is not just focused on the present. We each feel a need to be connected to the people of our past, and without being able to draw on this connection—this narrative—it is almost impossible to envision hopes and dreams for a connected and safe future. (Rose, Life Story Therapy with Traumatized Children, p. 9)
The legacy of abuse in childhood: primary relational trauma and disrupted attachment with the ensuing loss of family connections threatens the very foundations of all later development: a secure sense of self and identity, the ability to regulate emotion or soothe oneself, and the ability to engage in trusting, intimate relationships. Not only do primary relational trauma and disrupted attachment forever alter the normal trajectory of development, they also create an unhealed wound which becomes a deep reservoir of sadness, longing, fear, rage, guilt, shame, confusion and a sense of not belonging anywhere. Most importantly, it often resides in deeply dissociated and unconscious regions of the brain. Allan Schore writes extensively on this area:
The regulatory processes of affect synchrony, which creates states of positive arousal, and affective repair, which modulates states of negative arousal, are the fundamental building blocks of attachment and its associated emotions; and resilience in the face of stress and novelty is an ultimate indicator of attachment security. Through sequences of attunement, misattunement and reatunement an infant becomes a person, achieving a “psychological birth.” This preverbal matrix forms the core of the implicit self. (Schore, Pg. 32)
In essence, by seeking a lost family and home with an almost primal urge to reunite with their original family what we witness in these stories is primarily about individuals achieving “psychological birth.”
For many children in the system, their search is often an unspoken question, a lived-with knowledge of being different from the moment of placement. Nevertheless, regardless of circumstance, theirs is a singular search, an imperative to discover the what, how, why and finally, who, in the elusive search for identity: to make the implicit self a more conscious and whole self.
What is remarkable is that as one courageous person tells his story, it shines a little more light in the darkness, and illuminates the path for others who find themselves on a similar quest. Then, as I discovered, these individual adventurers find each other and for them it becomes like finding lost family; someone who understands what it is like.
Richard Rose put it rather succinctly, “What we needed as children to become securely attached, i. e., safety, stability, warmth, security, and engagement with caring people, we still need as adults.” We also needed to learn how to be self-regulating. However, the problem for children of the System is that they have to overcome the trauma of being given away, the disruption of placement, violence, and abuse. The task for children in Care, is to create within the boundaries of their own lives a sense of safety, security, control, stability, purpose, meaning, and a sense of worth through meaningful attachments. In other words they still need as we all do, to have a coherent narrative. Their lives need to make sense, need a secure base, a sense of belonging, and a place called home. Each step taken in that journey is a defining moment which takes us closer to home. This, I have discovered is the “Dialectics of Identity, a continual process of seeking, questioning, and interacting with what we find.
While they are accomplishing this, they still struggle with old wounds and questions about who they are, their worthiness, and a primal longing for family. The miracle for all of them is that somehow they found just enough within themselves or found someone at just the right time, and were able to survive against rather overwhelming odds and circumstances. They also survived being in a system that more often hindered their struggles than helped them, and in so doing created a coherent narrative which preserved the fragments of their past, without being destroyed by shame, doubt, and fear. The many crises of identity they each weathered resulted in a process of transformation and a stronger sense of personal identity. Their stories, of course are still ongoing. They still struggle with their unhealed wounds, struggle to feel good about themselves, to forgive themselves by letting go of guilt and shame. They struggle to trust and establish intimacy with those they love and to let go of regret and old losses. The struggle to channel the longing for home and family into the dynamic and vibrant present opportunities for creating a home of their very own, thereby making a world of their own choosing, a world they can call their own. This is the elusive quest for identity: Being able to affirm ourselves and say ‘yes’ to our lives in spite of all the circumstances which challenge our efforts. These ultimately become defining moments and form the mysterious, elusive entity we call by many names : Self Identity
