Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1975
Acting out of Character: Window on the Identity Crisis Lawrence H. Climo I Received December 1 7, 1974
An autobiographical account o f "acting out o f character"at a life turning point is presented as a window on a young person's identity crisis. Analysis o f that account reveals (1) that the "play" o f the tentative identities reflects the concurrent crisis in the character o f that person's society, (2) that the story the person now has to tell sets forth the range o f the psychosocial issues active in his life, (3) that the mysteries generated identify for the person the specific issues at crisis, (4) that the novelty o f the event itself catalyzes called for changes, and (5) that the metaphor o f the "out o f character" actions serves to preview the ultimate resolution.
INTRODUCTION In this paper I explore how "acting out of character" as a behavioral event relates to processes of ongoing character formation. More specifically, I am posing the following question: Can a close look into why a person does something which is uncharacteristic, i.e., "out of character" (for him), provide a window through which one might view underlying dynamics of that person's ongoing character development? Can the analysis in depth, for instance, of why a young college graduate concludes his years o f disciplined study with a desire to go abroad "just to bum around," or why a girl drops acid for the first time the week before her wedding, or why a man grows his first beard following a job change, etc., provide us with insight into so-called crises o f identity? i Staff Psychiatrist, Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Received M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Brohx, New York, in 1964, and psychiatry training at Yale. Interests lie in the area of psychotherapy with disturbed youth, careers of young people who become psychiatric aides in mental hospitals, and group homes for adolescents. 93 9 P l e n u m P u b l i s h i n g C o r p o r a t i o n , 2 2 7 West 1 7 t h S t r e e t , N e w Y o r k , N . Y . 1 0 0 1 1 . N o p a r t o f t h i s p u b l i c a t i o n m a y be r e p r o d u c e d , s t o r e d in a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s m i t t e d , in a n y f o r m o r b y a n y means, e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o c o p y i n g , m i c r o f i l m i n g , r e c o r d i n g , or o t h e r w i s e , w i t h n t l t w r i t t e n o e r m i s s i n n o f t h e Dublisher.
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The phenomenon called acting out of character seems commonplace enough. But the method of analyzing it, I think, calls for something uncommon. We're talking, after all, about an event that occurs in the normal setting of a person's life, not a clinical symptom that would be taken as a manifestation of illness, or a notable public event. So the theoretical frame of reference must be as broad as possible, plastic and multidimensional, and the method for collecting raw data must utilize the most promising sources. In this particular study, I have brought together theories from clinical psychoanalytic practice and joined them with new nonclinical concepts of psychosocial life stages and psychohistory. I have employed as my method the examination of a biographical account in depth. In fact, the account on which this particular analysis is based is autobiographical. The use of autobiographical material in a study such as this involves both an obvious advantage and an obvious risk. The advantage, of course, lies in the access of the investigator (here a practicing psychiatrist) to the raw data. The risk and the challenge, on the other hand, is to steer the delicate course between subjective experience and objective analysis. Erikson's caution (1964) is worth repeating: what the psychological investigator needs above all is "disciplined subjectivity." Anyone who has had experiences such as reporting on events where the act of the reporting was itself a major influence (e.g., writing one's political memoirs) or analyzing interactions where the act of the analysis itself was a major influence (e.g., a psychotherapeutic transaction) understands what he meant.
THE DATA At the age of 31 (1969) when I was entering the third year of my marriage and my wife was approaching the third trimester of her first pregnancy, I found myself on the threshold of the third (ffmal) year of my psychiatric residency. Also, I was about to begin a personal analysis. All the many pressing questions during that time of obvious transition for me, in both my personal and professional life (e.g., would it be a boy or a girl? what sort of life would I be offering to my new family? what sort of psychiatrist would I turn out to be? what new would I bring to the field?) seemed to come together and find expression in one particular predicament. As a resident new to the staff of the University Health Service but arriving when the University was in summer recess, I suddenly found that I had lots of free time. But what to do? How commit my time, my energies, my self in what was obviously a rare opportunity? Should I play? Work? Work at playing? Play at working? What should I do and who should I be? In Eriksonian terms, the issues were clearly those of identity and generativity. I was reading a Ross MacDonald mystery thriller when suddenly I flashed on the following insight: "Why I could do as good a bad job!" I experienced, in
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other words, an inspiration to write a mystery t h r i l l e r - something (for me) completely "out of character." I had never before had an urge to write, let alone to publish anything. I certainly never before aimed at deliberately creating for myself a negative identity, least of all that of a writer of "trash." My efforts did not succeed. At first, the imagined gratification I'd derive from publishing this trashy novel under a pseudonym and then revealing my true identity spurred me on. Then there was the excitement of putting together a plot outline and making up names for my characters. But then the need to really flesh out chapters left me feeling bogged down. What had begun half-in-fun and half-in-earnest slowly lost its appeal, and by wintertime I wanted to stop. I abandoned the project altogether and never went back to it. Aside from my wife, I told no one about this experience. The plot was as follows. The hero, an Army psychiatrist who returns from military service in Vietnam to pick up the threads of his civilian life once again, learns of the death by suicide of a colleague. The colleague's grieving sister tries to persuade him that her brother did not commit suicide by falling from his apartment balcony. At first, the hero doesn't take her seriously, but then, on the strength of an intuition of his own, he decides that she is right. The evidence that there may indeed have been someone in the apartment at the time of the death, and thus that the dead man may have met with foul play, comes from the arrangement of the furniture in the dead man's room. The room had been set up as if for a tape-recorded interview. The hero tries to determine whether or not someone actually was in the apartment on the night in question, and, if so, whether a tape recording could have been made. He learns that the answer to both these questions is yes, and, in fact, the tapes are recovered. What they reveal is that a patient who appeared at the General Hospital Emergency Room and was seen by the deceased psychiatrist was a man he diagnosed as suffering from an acute brain syndrome complicated by amnesia. This condition, presumably, had resulted from a car accident. Amytal interviews were subsequently conducted by the psychiatrist in his own apartment and the recovered tapes of these interviews indicated, albeit in a confused, fragmentary fashion, that political corruption was going on at the highest levels of government -- a political assassination was being planned. Unexplained was the fact that there were no hospital records for this particular case. The psychiatrist and his friend's sister surmise that an unknown person had committed a murder, and had done so because the murder victim had stumbled on some damaging information in treating by amytal interview his amnesic patient. Now to piece together the information and then present it to the authorities. Following a period of exploring blind alleys and after a chat with a former psychiatry professor of his, the hero breaks the impasse. All along he had assumed that he was dealing with a case of postconcussion amnesia in a mentally healthy individual. But what if the individual in question was mentally unbal-
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anced before the accident? Maybe the fragments on the tape were the product of a paranoid mind. Perhaps they were dealing with a disturbed person whose motive for murder might simply have been to protect himself from public exposure of his illness. He might even be then someone in the community who appeared most normal. The murderer, it tums out, is a candidate running for high office who has no recollection of his crime. This development climaxes with the decisive challenge: faced with an amnesic murderer the psychiatrist must put his professional skills to dangerous use. He will try to bring enough psychological stress to bear on this man to crack the defenses around his paranoid delusions; failing that, he may at least break through the barrier of amnesia and force the man to remember his crime. So he arranges a face-to-face confrontation. The outline ends here. In sum: (1) A situation of mystery challenges a young man who seeks to begin a new life. He discovers that he must first search out and expose someone's identity. (2) In doing this, the hero brings to light something which had been concealed. (3) Along the way he also confronts an antagonist -- deeply caught up in the struggle between remembering and forgetting. (4) The hero seeks to resolve the issue by arranging for a dangerous confrontation.
SOCIETY REFLECTED IN THE "PLAY" OF CAREER IDENTITIES Viewed as a simple change of mind over a career, albeit a momentary change of mind, "acting out of character" reflects aspects of a society. It reflects, for example, an age at which career closure is possible in that society. Further, in the acceptance of possible last-minute changes, it also reflects that society's tolerance for impermanence, meaning tolerance for a certain "play" or range of movement in career making. In my example, this translates into two brief statements. I am from a society in which a person can be past 30, which is at the very mature end of youth, at the conclusion of his career training. Mine is also a society which lets a fellow make last-minute career changes of the sort which either broaden the definition of a career identity or else delay closure on it. What the first of these two statements reflects is a basic fact of life of postindustrialized society. Individuals who are still in their early adolescence, as well as the majority of those in late adolescence and in their early 20s, simply do not have the know-how and the maturity necessary to meet the technological and psychological requirements for the newer work roles. Naturally, matters such as one's career identity remain as open questions well into one's 20s, and, thinking now of certain highly specialized careers (and my own is a good example here), sometimes well into one's 30s as well. What the second statement reflects is the probability that significant social changes are under way in that society. A last-minute broadening of one's career
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definition suggests, for example, that in that society a push for closure is countered by an opposite push to keep options open, with both forces remaining in conflict all the way down to the wire. Forces, in other words, which push for closure and for a career definition which will be exclusive meet counterforces which say that such definitions ought to remain open, ought to be more inclusive. What this tells us is that, on the societal level, there is a significant conflict between traditional and revolutionary forces, meaning between forces for permanence and stability and those pushing for things to stay in flux. The implication of the struggles on the individual level is that where the person is struggling between career closure vs. keeping options open, or between keeping career definitions fixed and exclusive, vs. making them more and more inclusive - between stabilizing, in other words, the symbols of his identity vs. keeping these symbols continually in flux -- he is also mirroring an identical struggle on the societal level. For both, where there is a h o p e ' o f limitless growth and a promise of opportunities without end, along with a call to accept limits, to make a commitment to a fixed position, successful resolutions will inevitably resound mutually. The evolving identities of both will together benefit from such resolutions. But what if, as in the case in point, both the effort to "act out of character" at a time of career closure and the new "career" stepped into are simultaneously in terrible earnest and just-make-believe? I, for example, started out quite deliberately as half in earnest and half in fun in my effort to write, not to mention that my aim was to be the successful author of something never intended to be taken seriously. What is reflected in this about the society the person lives in? Can it be that this is a society where two contradictory attitudes are routine wherever matters of serious commitment or of character are concerned? Since the society in question is today's American society, the answer is clearly yes. One has only to follow today's news headlines and reflect on the statements of the principal "actors" in those stories to realize that indeed our society routinely offers two quite contradictory attitudes over matters such as commitment and character. One attitude that often comes out is the attitude of life as "real" life. With this attitude the appropriate reaction to Watergate, for example, and the betrayal of public trust, would be outrage. Similarly, regarding the dehumanization of the My Lai victims the appropriate reaction would be horror. But there is another attitude which says that there is also a "game" of life, where the appropriate reaction to the Watergate "caper" would be either amusement or chagrin, depending on one's political party. As to the "gooks" or "slopes .... wasted" at My Lai, the appropriate reaction there would be indifference, "why the fuss?" Erikson noted recently (1972) that never have our social chroniclers, our political columnists, seemed more preoccupied than they are today with the coexistence of what we agree is real on the one hand and that which is unreal on the other; with the coexistence of what seems credible on the one hand, with half-truths, madness, and what are incredibly enough called
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"scripts and scenarios" on the other hand. Individual actions which are halfserious and half-in-fun, which are seriously undertaken but never meant to be taken seriously, are, in this light, more than just character elements in conflict with each other (e.g., a serious or "medical" side matched in conflict with a playful or "literary" side). There is also a split in attitude on the societal level figuring in, too. There is a resonance between what is at issue on one level and what is at issue on the other, what is split on one level and what is split on the other. Each feeds into the identity struggle of the other. What about the stepping into a specifically "literary" career? Why not step "out of character" into a less verbal and less intellectual activity? Does a "literary" career shed any light on society? And where do the thematic elements in the literary piece figure in (e.g., themes of separation, reunion, murder, revenge, a new life)? I suggest the following hypothesis. In societies such as ours, western, postindustrialized, undergoing changes, where there has been a steady institutionalization of what seems to be a new postadolescence stage of life ("youth," the "under 30s generation," etc.), and where, for this expanding " y o u t h " population, we have been offering unprecedented opportunities for intellectual, emotional, and moral gl?owth, opportunities that Keniston says "were never afforded any other large group in history" (1969, p. 124), young people tend to express the more sophisticated psychological insights through the more simple (i.e., nonverbal) art and activity forms, while, conversely, young people tend to express the more elementary of psychological dynamics through the higher (i.e., literary, verbal) art and activity forms. Should this hypothesis be borne out, then the following inference could be made. Where young people tend to give verbal and literary expression to those psychological dynamics which are unsophisticated, and nonintellectual expression to the more sophisticated psychological dynamics, their societies are those which give young people a great deal of time before expecting final confirmation o f career identities.
THE PERSON'S STORY AND THE RANGE OF ISSUES While anyone who "acts out of character" at a life turning point certainly has for himself a story to tell (about it), it is probably the fellow who is also seeking to publish his story who would be the one most likely to get it told, to get his message across so to speak. Such would be the case where the individual steps deliberately into the role or character of "author." The "story" themes which would then emerge would, on some level, be for us clues into what the psychosocial issues are which are currently active in that author's life. Such themes would, in other words, very likely hint at that author's immediate life predicament. I was such a person authoring a story at a life turning point. The themes of my story were as follows: There is a journey and a return; death and new life. There is a search for a person along with a wish for revenge. An
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important identity is unknown and there is struggle and danger. In the end, initiative along with special skills gets it all to come out right. The themes in this example clearly reflect more than one life issue, more than one psychosocial crisis. There is the issue of identity, of course, represented so directly by the search for a person whose identity is unknown. But there is also an issue of individual initiative, of looking for the clues and going it alone. This issue is represented in all the aspects of the plot which feature the Oedipal elements. Again, several issues appear to be operating together when one reviews the author's personal associations. Associating to "telling a story," I reported the following: My father used to read to m y brother and me, beginning when I was 5 and my brother 6, chapters from the book Swiss Family Robinson. The story was never finished because World War II broke out and m y father entered the Navy and went overseas. No one finished that story, so we had to discover on our own what happened to all those folks in the story left so unexpectedly on their own. I remember (still in childhood) my maternal uncle making up stories for all the children who would go with him on car rides. I recall my father's return home from the service many years later and all the fun we'd have on automobile "exploring" trips, with father getting us all to tell now-your-turn-to-make-upthe-next-part stories. (All these stories, curiously, never came to any ending or resolution.) I recall being a youngster and entertaining m y younger sister with my own made-up stories. Finally, I recall volunteering to make up and tell an original, serialized campfire story when a camp counselor the first time (age 22). Actually, I didn't want to have to make up an ending for the last campfire. But I agreed to when I was enabled to literally "act out" my ending before the audience (using campers, other counselors, sound effects, props, a horse, etc.). "Coincidently," in my story I turned out to have been the hero all along. I was persuaded, in other words, to bring my story to a conclusion only when I could combine some real action with the play action. In terms of a composite theme, a person finds himself as audience, and then as narrator, and then as actor. The stories are always adventure stories. The person creates characters and gives his characters names. He identifies with the characters and also with aspects of their adventures. And the one "adventure" which most of all links up these associations one to another and holds them together is the adventure of something being begun, but then something happening, a struggle then ensuing, and then a struggle to bring that which was started to its completion to deliver it. While parenthood is clearly one feature being represented here, this issue (of parenthood) is simultaneously a contemporary one (i.e., I am about to become a parent) and also an old orte (i.e., I am a son, my father is far away;the rest of us, mother, older brother, and me, are trying to keep the family going). The issues, in other words, are current (e.g., I ' m concerned about becoming an analysand, one who is specifically enjoined to "tell his story") and also old (e.g., I am aware of certain unfinished "stories" of the past, stories I am still struggling
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to finish). I want to be an author of a contemporary story and thus to confirm for myself here and now that I can be not only "one who generates something new" but also "one who generates new life." I want to resolve these issues of identity and generativity. But I also need to resolve issues of a much earlier stage, specifically Oedipal issues. (What is a son's relationship to his mother in his father's absence? What is his relationship to his absent father? How much "exploring" can he do on his own? And where do things you imagine, products of the mind, get to lead to real action?) The point again is that at a life turning point where there is an opportunity to confront and resolve an immediate psychosocial issue, other earlier issues also come to the fore. There is, thus, the simultaneous call to confront and resolve new issues and to reconfront and reresolve old ones.
THE METAPHOR: A RECOGNITION AND A PREVIEW
Throughout our lives but probably most of all during that period called youth, individuals generate, in their behavior and in their thoughts, stirring and sensitive metaphors. These are metaphors that recognize and reflect what is ongoing in a person's life. At times these metaphors become especially vivid and also timely. At life tuming points, for example, when these metaphors can subsume all the critical aspects of that person's immediate life crisis or life predicament, they also provide a symbolic entre into what the significant issues are all about. My experience in "acting out of character" at that time of transition in my life represents just such a metaphor. My effort as I've outlined it and my "product" as well were both statements about an immediate life situation and a portrayal of issues. I was becoming a father, I was coming to closure on a career definition, and I was about to begin a personal analysis. Thus identity, generativity, and initiative were the main issues. But what is especially intriguing is that besides being an ample statement of a concrete, present reality for me, and reflection of something past, my mataphor also stood as a preview to a future yet to come. Any individual who "acts out of character" and tries to become an author, as in my example, and who is in actuality capable of writing a story, will probably discover this. H.e'll become an author. But the other fellow, who, like myself, discovers that he c a n n o t write a story, but who is somewhat able to address the problem of effort and failure instead, will ponder this problem. He'll become an investigator. He'll write a paper like this one. The point is that the effort and the product which an individual generates as he thus "acts out of character" at a life turning point possibly contain for him, in addition to the core metaphor for his immediate life predicament and some reflections on what brought him to such a point, a seed for his future yet to unfold.
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The metaphor, then, which the individual generates can (although not necessarily) actually preview a quite specific and concrete career yet to unfold. Man it seems is essentially and most characteristically a "symbolizing" creature. He does become most truly himself when he is giving symbolic expression to who and to what he is and to where he finds he is going.
MYSTERY REFLECTING THE ISSUES AT CRISIS
To some extent, everyone who "acts out o f character" poses a mystery. People wonder about him. What's going on? What's he up to? But for a really close look into what that mystery is about one would obviously have to consult the person himself. Failing that, it would at least be useful to have some access to questions that the person himself was phrasing, questions about some "mystery," for example. In m y own example, "acting out o f character" led, and quite "literally" so, to the creating o f a very definite mystery. What can we learn from this? Looking at the intensity o f the mystery, one sees first o f all a clue to possible subjective experiences that the person m a y be struggling with. I set about being an author o f a mystery story and quite deliberately and actively, too, attempted to keep this project a secret. Making m y own mystery and keeping my own secret were therefore something pretty important to me. But, on the other hand (and stepping back here for a moment), the review o f m y life situation out o f which this effort arose shows quite a different picture. In contrast to m y " m a s t e r y " o f all the mysteries at hand in m y assuming the "out o f character" role o f author, certain mysteries in my real life were, in contrast, offering no such mastery at all. In terms o f m y becoming a psychiatrist, for example, I was still very much an initiate. I was still enduring all the anxieties o f entering a profession which promises to take one to the very deepest secrets o f the mind, to confront one with madness, with one's own madness perhaps, to make one a practitioner o f a profession itself steeped in mystique. I was in addition the passive and not at all the active petitioner for the new status o f parenthood. And I was no master certainly o f whatever story I'd be unfolding to m y analyst, another anxious and passive confrontation with a mystery, here the mystery o f growth. 2 Thus in terms o f his real life this would-be author and 2Grotjahn's (1970) theory of the popular interest in mystery stories would probably fit very nicely here. In his suggesting that this popular interest really reflects the protracted efforts on the part of the individual to solve a mystery of childhood which never found solution in that period, namely the mystery of one's parents' sexuality, Grotjahn hints that other normal growth phenomena, other developmental milestones, etc., can likewise be intimately experienced as genuine mystery and as such come to the fore to demand new resolutions.
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would-be master of mysteries and secrets was nothing more than another poor soul struggling to cope with the intensities of a whole bunch of mysteries hitting him all at once, of madness, life, and growth in this case. A subjective experience, in other words, stemming from a very real life situation actually reversed itself. But the intensity with which he projected mystery and generated suspense, even though masterfully and actively, did give away his deeper experience. The precise ways that the individual seeks to phrase his mystery, and the precise questions which then emerge and which can be asked, are another route to uncovering a person's subjective experience. The whole mystery about authorship, for example, boils down to one two-part question. How does one write something which gets published? How does one become an author? In terms of the psychosocial issues being wrestled out here, they are clearly generativity (i.e., how do I make something?) and identity (i.e., how do I become something?); in formal Eriksonian terms, Generativity vs. Stagnation and Identity vs. Identity Diffusion. In terms of the person's subjective experience, these issues are thus clearly experienced as overlapping and coinciding. Erikson's life stages, in other words, from the point of view of the "actor" are not experienced as the discrete and separate stages they appear to be on paper. Another part to my mystery has to do with something being unknown or forgotten. The story murderer's own story sharply portrays this in the focus on something concealed in the past. Thus another question being posed is Can a person ever be known without first revealing, unraveling, or confronting things which are concealed in his past? Put another way: Can I ever be truly known to myself without first revealing to myself things which have been hidden? Must I, for example, encounter anew my father of my childhood, or myself as a child, even now as I'm just beginning to look for an analyst to work with and feeling pretty anxious about that? Clearly the symbolism of searching for an unknown person does call to mind, in addition to one's search for one's "self," my decision to find an analyst with whom to begin my personal analysis. And having the story's hero enter a new situation, probe, and dig deep for answers, try to get things which are hidden to come forward and be known, is my symbolic vehicle for trying to find and put together the parts to something like a puzzle and thus hopefully complete and confirm an identity, to be "known," in other words, to myself. A question about one's future also emerges from the mysteries of the story. Thus still another question is asked: How does one take that which is past and the reality o f that which is present and then link up both to an unfolding future? The hero of the story, one recalls, takes his insights into the past, along with his grasp of a very real immediate situation, and then wonders where it might lead. His wish, of course, is to come up with the right creative, innovative plan that will make everything work out all right. Still another question which is posed here is the question about the special qualities that make one's character unique. Could it be, the author wonders, that
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the uniqueness of character is really the unique mixture of things which are done
with things yet to be done, of matters resolved with matters still in suspense? Is it the still-to-be-put-together puzzle of our lives, the still-to-be-finished story of our lives, which makes the essence o f our uniqueness as characters? Just as a certain unpredictability seems necessary for any given generation to fulfill its function (Erikson, 1963), is it likewise true that something like a uniqueness o f our "suspension" (uniqueness "in suspension?") is really what provides each of us with a personality which has its own unity? At the very end of Odet's play The Flowering Peach, Noah looks up at the rainbow. His ordeal is over and he knows that he now has another chance for a new start. He knows, too, that it is up to man what will happen next. Yes, the lessons of the past are there to be uncovered and learned; the trials of the present are at their crisis; and a future waits. "Yes, I hear you, God," Noah says. "Now it's in man's hands to make or destroy the world. I'll tell you a mystery." I quote this speech because it makes this same point. The clearest, most condensed, and yet still pointed expression of a life turning point and also the most accurate symbol for the insights which then become possible for the individual is the symbolism o f a "mystery." POINT OF NOVELTY, POINT OF TURNING In offering the individual a unique and special sort o f experience, a "novel" experience as it were, "acting out o f character" brings forward for the individual some universal symbols o f rebirth. There is, for example, a leave-taking, a getting into something new, a trying on o f something different, and then a return. As to whether or not this symbolic process actually prophecies for the person a true gain, genuine knowledge, or growth, or whether the sequence foretells any new levels o f maturity, one cannot predict. In m y example I removed myself physically from my wife by going alone upstairs to a den to do my thinking and writing. I left her mentally as well. And I repeated this process frequently and regularly over the course o f many months. After a period of time something happened, something changed. It was over and I "came back." This was the sequence. This same sequence is also found in young people taking leave in other ways, taking leave of their families, for example, or their countries, or even their customary ways of doing things (or, perhaps, even of their senses). The "places" gone to and returned from, in other words, can be geographic and/or mental (i.e., another "state" o f mind). The question I raise is whether or not the individual who thus "acts out o f character" at a life turning point is actually aware o f and possibly even deliberate about his manipulation o f such obvious symbols. Sometimes, at least to a limited extent, it does seem that individuals are aware. The gesture at recognizing and marking a life turning point, and also possibly catalyzing some hoped for
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new growth, does seem pretty transparent in the example o f the youngster going off to camp the first time and conferring on himself his own new "nickname." Other times it seems less in the person's awareness, like the fellow who grew his beard when he began a new job. Was he actually aware of giving symbolic expression to "new growth"? Was the individual who took the LSD trip at a life turning point consciously confirming that he was someone who had "tripped," who had gone somewhere and come back again (and perhaps even taken a fall)? Is the person who goes abroad just to "bum around" conscious that the symbolism he is generating confirms as well as catalyzes an arrival at a new place? My primary thesis here is that there is indeed something in the sort of "novel" experiences that I am talking about, namely the kind that occurs at a life turning point, that is meant not only to recognize but also to catalyze a situation of growth, o f "passage." But why must the individual himself be the one to make it happen? Why must he go to such symbolic trouble, and over transitions so relatively unexciting (at least as far as his community seems concerned)? The answer I think lies in the fact that ours is a fast-changing and unevenly progressing society. Virtually every significant transition in an individual's life cycle is marked by ceremonies which either have long since lost their symbolic clout or else have been diluted to the point of just being a series o f unexciting and unconnected happenings. Transitions, in other words, are as often as not experienced by the individual as private and lonely moments, not as high points, mutually shared in by others in his community. Ceremonies of recognition and confirmation are simply too much out o f synch. In fact, it is this particular feature of our society which seems to be the most popular reflector o f our era, the "character" o f our era. We live, we are told, in an Era o f a Technological Explosion, a Population Explosion, a Morality Explosion, an Information Explosion: we live with a Counterculture. We suffer Historical Dislocation. We suffer from Future Shock. As a society, suffering as we are such profound impairment to fundamental symbols o f transition, matters relating to growth and change, to transition and identity, are now critical matters for every individual. The so-called Identity Crisis is not simply a concern of one generation, the generation of youth. It's everybody's concern. It's society's concern. Our very existence, our sine qua non for claiming an identity as a species, is not unrealistically under threat. It is in the character o f our era that more and more people are not only about to gain identities and about to lose identities, but simply more aware of identity as well. So the individual goes to such trouble because his society no longer provides him with his symbols. It hardly is able to provide itself with.the right symbols. Three meanings to this urge to create a "novel" experience at a life turning point, then, are (1) a heightened need to actively manage the unfolding o f a psychosocial identity, (2) a need to more actively catalyze and confirm it, and along the way (3) a need to more imaginatively author any and all experiences which might provide the necessary symbolic assists. "Acting out o f character,"
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then, is the discovery and rediscovery o f that blend o f symbols which will provide for the individual the critical assist he needs in negotiating the unfolding of his "self." One might pause here and speculate about all those other examples of this phenomenon. Can these same meanings be given to drug experiences, to traveling arotmd, or even to temporary indulgence o f symptoms o f mental breakdown? Are those individuals doing these things basically trying to find themselves? In this regard it is interesting to recall that the expression used by the junkie when he shoots up heroin to get "high" is the same expression used by the navigator (in a different "vein," of course): they are both getting their "fix." But the one is either lost or seeking to lose himself (perhaps to later find himself?.), while the other, who may or may not already be lost, is definitely ready to find himself, definitely ready to be sure o f his direction again, ready to resume his course. The discovery of one's character and also one's confirmation in one's identity do not happen in a social vacuum. There is an ongoing, mutually complementary and mutually vitalizing process. The individual and his society both have matters of identity to work out. One's discovery of one's own character resonates with the discovery o f the character of one's community (and the discovery of literally everything around one), and this discovering mutually resonates with the being discovered. In this, each gets confirmed as being unique in character and as having character. I grew creative at a time of creating growth. Perhaps it was simply as Keniston says (1963). As the generational past becomes more and more distant, and as the future, in turn, becomes so very unpredictable, we all may be called on to make not only additional efforts but also more creative efforts at getting it all to come out right -- at "getting it all together."
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable encouragement and guidance of Margaret Brenman-Gibson in preparing this paper.
REFERENCES
Anthony, R. P. (1970). When "shoe" befit Yale: A reconstruction of the silent years. Yale Alumni Magazine, March, pp. 44-49. Barnes, M. (1970). Election. Radical Therapist 1: 10. Berke, J. (1970). Counter-culture. Radical Therapist 1: 6-9. Berke, J. (1971). Anti-psychiatry: Interview with Joe Berke. Radical Therapist 1: 14-15. Berkshire Eagle, The (1972). Two garbage men who went to Yale. February 20. Bowers, M. B. (1963). Pathogenesis of acute schizophrenic psychosis: An experiential approach. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 19: 348-355.
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Brenman, M., and Gill, M. (1963). Research in psychotherapy round table, 1947. Am. J. Orthopsychiat. 18: 92-118. Campbell, J. (1956). The Hero with a Thousand Faces, World Publishing Company, Meridian Books, New York. Crichton, M. (1969). The Andromeda Strain, Knopf, New York. Edelson, M. (1971). The ldea of a Mental Illness, Yale University Press, New Haven. Efron, E. (1971). The star in search of an identity: Nobody seems to recognize Joanne Woodward including herself. TV Guide, Nov. 27-Dec. 3, pp. 21-24. Epstein, J. (1971). Homo/hetero: The struggle for sexual identity. Reflections 6:41-66. Erikson, E. (1954). The dream specimen of psychoanalysis. In Knight, R. P., and Friedman, C. R. (eds.), Psychoanalytic Psychiatry and Psychology, International Universities Press, New York, pp. 131-170. Erikson, E. (1958). Young Man Luther, Norton, New York. Erikson, E. (1959). Identity and the Life Cycle, Psychological Issues Monograph Series No. 1, International Universities Press, New York. Erikson, E. (1963). Youth: Fidelity and diversity. In Erikson, E. (ed.), Youth: Change and Challenge, Basic Books, New York, pp. 1-23. Erikson, E. (1964). Insight and Responsibility, Norton, New York. Erikson, E. (1968). Identity, psychosocial. In International Encyclopedia o f Social Science, Macmillan, New York. Erikson, E. (1970). Autobiographic notes on the identity crisis. Daedalus 99: 730-759. Erikson, E. (1972). Play, vision, and deception. Unpublished. Frankl, V. E. (1967). Paradoxical intention: A logotherapeutic technique. In Greenwald, H. (ed.), Active Psychotherapy, Atherton Press, New York. Freud, S. (1953). The Interpretation of Dreams, (1900), standard ed., Hogarth Press, London. Grotjahn, M. (1970). Sex, and the mystery story. Hum. Sexuality {1972) 6: 126-140. Kafka, J. S. (1971). Ambiguity for individuation. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 25: 232-239. Keniston, K. (1963). Social change and youth in America. In Erikson, E. (ed.), Youth: Change and Challenge, Basic Books, New York, pp. 161-187. Keniston, K. (1969). You have to grow up in Scarsdale to know how bad things really are. The New York Times Magazine, April 27. Kubie, L. (1971). The retreat from patients. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 24: 98-106. Laing, R. D. (1970). Knots, Pantheon Books, New York. Levi, D. L., Stierlin, H., and Savard, R. J. (1972). Fathers and sons: The interlocking crises of integrity and identity. Psychiatry 35: 4 8 - 5 6 . Lifton, R. J. (1970). Boundaries: Psychological Man in Revolution, Vintage Books, New York. Lifton, R. J. (1971). Protean man. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 24: 298-304. Lubin, M. (1971). The free university and me. Unpublished. Ludwig, A. M. (1969). Altered states of consciousness. In Tart, C. T. (ed.), Altered States of Consciousness, Wiley, New York, pp. 9-22. MacDonald, R. (1964). The Far Side of a Dollar, Bantam Books, New York. Mack, J. E. (1971). Psychoanalysis and historical biography. J. Am. Psychoanal. Assoc. 19: 143-179. Marateck, J. (1972). The conscript. Hadassah Magazine, March. Marquez, G. G. (1970). One Hundred Years o f Solitude, Harper and Row, New York. Musto, D. F. (1970). History and psychiatry's present state of transition. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 23: 385-392. Nelson, M. C. (1967). Effects of paradigmatic techniques on the psychic economy of borderline patients. In Greenwald, H. (ed.), Active Psychotherapy, Atherton Press, New York, pp. 6 3 - 8 9 . Odets, C. (1954). The Flowering Peach. Unpublished. Rome H. P. (1972). Dissent of youth in a world of change. Psychiat. Ann. 2: 30-41. Schatzman, M. (1970). Madness and morals. Radical Therapist 1 : 11-15.
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Searles, H. F. (1965). Anxiety concerning change as seen in the psychotherapy of schizophrenic patients with particular reference to the sense of personal identity. In Harold F. Searles, Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects, International Universities Press, New York, pp. 443-464. Semple, R. B. (1959). Class history. In 1959 Senior Class Book, Yale Banner Publications, Yale University, New Haven. Stein, J. (1965). Fiddler on the Roof, Copyright 1965 by Joseph Stein, Crown. Time Magazine (1971). Rites of passage: The knapsack nomads. July 19. Toffler, A. (1970). Future shock. Horizon 12: 82-89. Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J., and Jackson, D. D. (1967). Paradox in psychotherapy. In Pragmatics o f Human Communication, Norton, New York, pp. 230-256. Winnicott, D. W. (1953). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. Int. J. Psychoanal 34: 89-97. Wyss, J. R. (1960). Swiss Family Robinson, Dell, New York.
Acting out of Character: Window on the Identity Crisis Lawrence H. Climo I Received December 1 7, 1974
An autobiographical account o f "acting out o f character"at a life turning point is presented as a window on a young person's identity crisis. Analysis o f that account reveals (1) that the "play" o f the tentative identities reflects the concurrent crisis in the character o f that person's society, (2) that the story the person now has to tell sets forth the range o f the psychosocial issues active in his life, (3) that the mysteries generated identify for the person the specific issues at crisis, (4) that the novelty o f the event itself catalyzes called for changes, and (5) that the metaphor o f the "out o f character" actions serves to preview the ultimate resolution.
INTRODUCTION In this paper I explore how "acting out of character" as a behavioral event relates to processes of ongoing character formation. More specifically, I am posing the following question: Can a close look into why a person does something which is uncharacteristic, i.e., "out of character" (for him), provide a window through which one might view underlying dynamics of that person's ongoing character development? Can the analysis in depth, for instance, of why a young college graduate concludes his years o f disciplined study with a desire to go abroad "just to bum around," or why a girl drops acid for the first time the week before her wedding, or why a man grows his first beard following a job change, etc., provide us with insight into so-called crises o f identity? i Staff Psychiatrist, Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Received M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Brohx, New York, in 1964, and psychiatry training at Yale. Interests lie in the area of psychotherapy with disturbed youth, careers of young people who become psychiatric aides in mental hospitals, and group homes for adolescents. 93 9 P l e n u m P u b l i s h i n g C o r p o r a t i o n , 2 2 7 West 1 7 t h S t r e e t , N e w Y o r k , N . Y . 1 0 0 1 1 . N o p a r t o f t h i s p u b l i c a t i o n m a y be r e p r o d u c e d , s t o r e d in a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s m i t t e d , in a n y f o r m o r b y a n y means, e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o c o p y i n g , m i c r o f i l m i n g , r e c o r d i n g , or o t h e r w i s e , w i t h n t l t w r i t t e n o e r m i s s i n n o f t h e Dublisher.
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The phenomenon called acting out of character seems commonplace enough. But the method of analyzing it, I think, calls for something uncommon. We're talking, after all, about an event that occurs in the normal setting of a person's life, not a clinical symptom that would be taken as a manifestation of illness, or a notable public event. So the theoretical frame of reference must be as broad as possible, plastic and multidimensional, and the method for collecting raw data must utilize the most promising sources. In this particular study, I have brought together theories from clinical psychoanalytic practice and joined them with new nonclinical concepts of psychosocial life stages and psychohistory. I have employed as my method the examination of a biographical account in depth. In fact, the account on which this particular analysis is based is autobiographical. The use of autobiographical material in a study such as this involves both an obvious advantage and an obvious risk. The advantage, of course, lies in the access of the investigator (here a practicing psychiatrist) to the raw data. The risk and the challenge, on the other hand, is to steer the delicate course between subjective experience and objective analysis. Erikson's caution (1964) is worth repeating: what the psychological investigator needs above all is "disciplined subjectivity." Anyone who has had experiences such as reporting on events where the act of the reporting was itself a major influence (e.g., writing one's political memoirs) or analyzing interactions where the act of the analysis itself was a major influence (e.g., a psychotherapeutic transaction) understands what he meant.
THE DATA At the age of 31 (1969) when I was entering the third year of my marriage and my wife was approaching the third trimester of her first pregnancy, I found myself on the threshold of the third (ffmal) year of my psychiatric residency. Also, I was about to begin a personal analysis. All the many pressing questions during that time of obvious transition for me, in both my personal and professional life (e.g., would it be a boy or a girl? what sort of life would I be offering to my new family? what sort of psychiatrist would I turn out to be? what new would I bring to the field?) seemed to come together and find expression in one particular predicament. As a resident new to the staff of the University Health Service but arriving when the University was in summer recess, I suddenly found that I had lots of free time. But what to do? How commit my time, my energies, my self in what was obviously a rare opportunity? Should I play? Work? Work at playing? Play at working? What should I do and who should I be? In Eriksonian terms, the issues were clearly those of identity and generativity. I was reading a Ross MacDonald mystery thriller when suddenly I flashed on the following insight: "Why I could do as good a bad job!" I experienced, in
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other words, an inspiration to write a mystery t h r i l l e r - something (for me) completely "out of character." I had never before had an urge to write, let alone to publish anything. I certainly never before aimed at deliberately creating for myself a negative identity, least of all that of a writer of "trash." My efforts did not succeed. At first, the imagined gratification I'd derive from publishing this trashy novel under a pseudonym and then revealing my true identity spurred me on. Then there was the excitement of putting together a plot outline and making up names for my characters. But then the need to really flesh out chapters left me feeling bogged down. What had begun half-in-fun and half-in-earnest slowly lost its appeal, and by wintertime I wanted to stop. I abandoned the project altogether and never went back to it. Aside from my wife, I told no one about this experience. The plot was as follows. The hero, an Army psychiatrist who returns from military service in Vietnam to pick up the threads of his civilian life once again, learns of the death by suicide of a colleague. The colleague's grieving sister tries to persuade him that her brother did not commit suicide by falling from his apartment balcony. At first, the hero doesn't take her seriously, but then, on the strength of an intuition of his own, he decides that she is right. The evidence that there may indeed have been someone in the apartment at the time of the death, and thus that the dead man may have met with foul play, comes from the arrangement of the furniture in the dead man's room. The room had been set up as if for a tape-recorded interview. The hero tries to determine whether or not someone actually was in the apartment on the night in question, and, if so, whether a tape recording could have been made. He learns that the answer to both these questions is yes, and, in fact, the tapes are recovered. What they reveal is that a patient who appeared at the General Hospital Emergency Room and was seen by the deceased psychiatrist was a man he diagnosed as suffering from an acute brain syndrome complicated by amnesia. This condition, presumably, had resulted from a car accident. Amytal interviews were subsequently conducted by the psychiatrist in his own apartment and the recovered tapes of these interviews indicated, albeit in a confused, fragmentary fashion, that political corruption was going on at the highest levels of government -- a political assassination was being planned. Unexplained was the fact that there were no hospital records for this particular case. The psychiatrist and his friend's sister surmise that an unknown person had committed a murder, and had done so because the murder victim had stumbled on some damaging information in treating by amytal interview his amnesic patient. Now to piece together the information and then present it to the authorities. Following a period of exploring blind alleys and after a chat with a former psychiatry professor of his, the hero breaks the impasse. All along he had assumed that he was dealing with a case of postconcussion amnesia in a mentally healthy individual. But what if the individual in question was mentally unbal-
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anced before the accident? Maybe the fragments on the tape were the product of a paranoid mind. Perhaps they were dealing with a disturbed person whose motive for murder might simply have been to protect himself from public exposure of his illness. He might even be then someone in the community who appeared most normal. The murderer, it tums out, is a candidate running for high office who has no recollection of his crime. This development climaxes with the decisive challenge: faced with an amnesic murderer the psychiatrist must put his professional skills to dangerous use. He will try to bring enough psychological stress to bear on this man to crack the defenses around his paranoid delusions; failing that, he may at least break through the barrier of amnesia and force the man to remember his crime. So he arranges a face-to-face confrontation. The outline ends here. In sum: (1) A situation of mystery challenges a young man who seeks to begin a new life. He discovers that he must first search out and expose someone's identity. (2) In doing this, the hero brings to light something which had been concealed. (3) Along the way he also confronts an antagonist -- deeply caught up in the struggle between remembering and forgetting. (4) The hero seeks to resolve the issue by arranging for a dangerous confrontation.
SOCIETY REFLECTED IN THE "PLAY" OF CAREER IDENTITIES Viewed as a simple change of mind over a career, albeit a momentary change of mind, "acting out of character" reflects aspects of a society. It reflects, for example, an age at which career closure is possible in that society. Further, in the acceptance of possible last-minute changes, it also reflects that society's tolerance for impermanence, meaning tolerance for a certain "play" or range of movement in career making. In my example, this translates into two brief statements. I am from a society in which a person can be past 30, which is at the very mature end of youth, at the conclusion of his career training. Mine is also a society which lets a fellow make last-minute career changes of the sort which either broaden the definition of a career identity or else delay closure on it. What the first of these two statements reflects is a basic fact of life of postindustrialized society. Individuals who are still in their early adolescence, as well as the majority of those in late adolescence and in their early 20s, simply do not have the know-how and the maturity necessary to meet the technological and psychological requirements for the newer work roles. Naturally, matters such as one's career identity remain as open questions well into one's 20s, and, thinking now of certain highly specialized careers (and my own is a good example here), sometimes well into one's 30s as well. What the second statement reflects is the probability that significant social changes are under way in that society. A last-minute broadening of one's career
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definition suggests, for example, that in that society a push for closure is countered by an opposite push to keep options open, with both forces remaining in conflict all the way down to the wire. Forces, in other words, which push for closure and for a career definition which will be exclusive meet counterforces which say that such definitions ought to remain open, ought to be more inclusive. What this tells us is that, on the societal level, there is a significant conflict between traditional and revolutionary forces, meaning between forces for permanence and stability and those pushing for things to stay in flux. The implication of the struggles on the individual level is that where the person is struggling between career closure vs. keeping options open, or between keeping career definitions fixed and exclusive, vs. making them more and more inclusive - between stabilizing, in other words, the symbols of his identity vs. keeping these symbols continually in flux -- he is also mirroring an identical struggle on the societal level. For both, where there is a h o p e ' o f limitless growth and a promise of opportunities without end, along with a call to accept limits, to make a commitment to a fixed position, successful resolutions will inevitably resound mutually. The evolving identities of both will together benefit from such resolutions. But what if, as in the case in point, both the effort to "act out of character" at a time of career closure and the new "career" stepped into are simultaneously in terrible earnest and just-make-believe? I, for example, started out quite deliberately as half in earnest and half in fun in my effort to write, not to mention that my aim was to be the successful author of something never intended to be taken seriously. What is reflected in this about the society the person lives in? Can it be that this is a society where two contradictory attitudes are routine wherever matters of serious commitment or of character are concerned? Since the society in question is today's American society, the answer is clearly yes. One has only to follow today's news headlines and reflect on the statements of the principal "actors" in those stories to realize that indeed our society routinely offers two quite contradictory attitudes over matters such as commitment and character. One attitude that often comes out is the attitude of life as "real" life. With this attitude the appropriate reaction to Watergate, for example, and the betrayal of public trust, would be outrage. Similarly, regarding the dehumanization of the My Lai victims the appropriate reaction would be horror. But there is another attitude which says that there is also a "game" of life, where the appropriate reaction to the Watergate "caper" would be either amusement or chagrin, depending on one's political party. As to the "gooks" or "slopes .... wasted" at My Lai, the appropriate reaction there would be indifference, "why the fuss?" Erikson noted recently (1972) that never have our social chroniclers, our political columnists, seemed more preoccupied than they are today with the coexistence of what we agree is real on the one hand and that which is unreal on the other; with the coexistence of what seems credible on the one hand, with half-truths, madness, and what are incredibly enough called
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"scripts and scenarios" on the other hand. Individual actions which are halfserious and half-in-fun, which are seriously undertaken but never meant to be taken seriously, are, in this light, more than just character elements in conflict with each other (e.g., a serious or "medical" side matched in conflict with a playful or "literary" side). There is also a split in attitude on the societal level figuring in, too. There is a resonance between what is at issue on one level and what is at issue on the other, what is split on one level and what is split on the other. Each feeds into the identity struggle of the other. What about the stepping into a specifically "literary" career? Why not step "out of character" into a less verbal and less intellectual activity? Does a "literary" career shed any light on society? And where do the thematic elements in the literary piece figure in (e.g., themes of separation, reunion, murder, revenge, a new life)? I suggest the following hypothesis. In societies such as ours, western, postindustrialized, undergoing changes, where there has been a steady institutionalization of what seems to be a new postadolescence stage of life ("youth," the "under 30s generation," etc.), and where, for this expanding " y o u t h " population, we have been offering unprecedented opportunities for intellectual, emotional, and moral gl?owth, opportunities that Keniston says "were never afforded any other large group in history" (1969, p. 124), young people tend to express the more sophisticated psychological insights through the more simple (i.e., nonverbal) art and activity forms, while, conversely, young people tend to express the more elementary of psychological dynamics through the higher (i.e., literary, verbal) art and activity forms. Should this hypothesis be borne out, then the following inference could be made. Where young people tend to give verbal and literary expression to those psychological dynamics which are unsophisticated, and nonintellectual expression to the more sophisticated psychological dynamics, their societies are those which give young people a great deal of time before expecting final confirmation o f career identities.
THE PERSON'S STORY AND THE RANGE OF ISSUES While anyone who "acts out of character" at a life turning point certainly has for himself a story to tell (about it), it is probably the fellow who is also seeking to publish his story who would be the one most likely to get it told, to get his message across so to speak. Such would be the case where the individual steps deliberately into the role or character of "author." The "story" themes which would then emerge would, on some level, be for us clues into what the psychosocial issues are which are currently active in that author's life. Such themes would, in other words, very likely hint at that author's immediate life predicament. I was such a person authoring a story at a life turning point. The themes of my story were as follows: There is a journey and a return; death and new life. There is a search for a person along with a wish for revenge. An
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important identity is unknown and there is struggle and danger. In the end, initiative along with special skills gets it all to come out right. The themes in this example clearly reflect more than one life issue, more than one psychosocial crisis. There is the issue of identity, of course, represented so directly by the search for a person whose identity is unknown. But there is also an issue of individual initiative, of looking for the clues and going it alone. This issue is represented in all the aspects of the plot which feature the Oedipal elements. Again, several issues appear to be operating together when one reviews the author's personal associations. Associating to "telling a story," I reported the following: My father used to read to m y brother and me, beginning when I was 5 and my brother 6, chapters from the book Swiss Family Robinson. The story was never finished because World War II broke out and m y father entered the Navy and went overseas. No one finished that story, so we had to discover on our own what happened to all those folks in the story left so unexpectedly on their own. I remember (still in childhood) my maternal uncle making up stories for all the children who would go with him on car rides. I recall my father's return home from the service many years later and all the fun we'd have on automobile "exploring" trips, with father getting us all to tell now-your-turn-to-make-upthe-next-part stories. (All these stories, curiously, never came to any ending or resolution.) I recall being a youngster and entertaining m y younger sister with my own made-up stories. Finally, I recall volunteering to make up and tell an original, serialized campfire story when a camp counselor the first time (age 22). Actually, I didn't want to have to make up an ending for the last campfire. But I agreed to when I was enabled to literally "act out" my ending before the audience (using campers, other counselors, sound effects, props, a horse, etc.). "Coincidently," in my story I turned out to have been the hero all along. I was persuaded, in other words, to bring my story to a conclusion only when I could combine some real action with the play action. In terms of a composite theme, a person finds himself as audience, and then as narrator, and then as actor. The stories are always adventure stories. The person creates characters and gives his characters names. He identifies with the characters and also with aspects of their adventures. And the one "adventure" which most of all links up these associations one to another and holds them together is the adventure of something being begun, but then something happening, a struggle then ensuing, and then a struggle to bring that which was started to its completion to deliver it. While parenthood is clearly one feature being represented here, this issue (of parenthood) is simultaneously a contemporary one (i.e., I am about to become a parent) and also an old orte (i.e., I am a son, my father is far away;the rest of us, mother, older brother, and me, are trying to keep the family going). The issues, in other words, are current (e.g., I ' m concerned about becoming an analysand, one who is specifically enjoined to "tell his story") and also old (e.g., I am aware of certain unfinished "stories" of the past, stories I am still struggling
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to finish). I want to be an author of a contemporary story and thus to confirm for myself here and now that I can be not only "one who generates something new" but also "one who generates new life." I want to resolve these issues of identity and generativity. But I also need to resolve issues of a much earlier stage, specifically Oedipal issues. (What is a son's relationship to his mother in his father's absence? What is his relationship to his absent father? How much "exploring" can he do on his own? And where do things you imagine, products of the mind, get to lead to real action?) The point again is that at a life turning point where there is an opportunity to confront and resolve an immediate psychosocial issue, other earlier issues also come to the fore. There is, thus, the simultaneous call to confront and resolve new issues and to reconfront and reresolve old ones.
THE METAPHOR: A RECOGNITION AND A PREVIEW
Throughout our lives but probably most of all during that period called youth, individuals generate, in their behavior and in their thoughts, stirring and sensitive metaphors. These are metaphors that recognize and reflect what is ongoing in a person's life. At times these metaphors become especially vivid and also timely. At life tuming points, for example, when these metaphors can subsume all the critical aspects of that person's immediate life crisis or life predicament, they also provide a symbolic entre into what the significant issues are all about. My experience in "acting out of character" at that time of transition in my life represents just such a metaphor. My effort as I've outlined it and my "product" as well were both statements about an immediate life situation and a portrayal of issues. I was becoming a father, I was coming to closure on a career definition, and I was about to begin a personal analysis. Thus identity, generativity, and initiative were the main issues. But what is especially intriguing is that besides being an ample statement of a concrete, present reality for me, and reflection of something past, my mataphor also stood as a preview to a future yet to come. Any individual who "acts out of character" and tries to become an author, as in my example, and who is in actuality capable of writing a story, will probably discover this. H.e'll become an author. But the other fellow, who, like myself, discovers that he c a n n o t write a story, but who is somewhat able to address the problem of effort and failure instead, will ponder this problem. He'll become an investigator. He'll write a paper like this one. The point is that the effort and the product which an individual generates as he thus "acts out of character" at a life turning point possibly contain for him, in addition to the core metaphor for his immediate life predicament and some reflections on what brought him to such a point, a seed for his future yet to unfold.
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The metaphor, then, which the individual generates can (although not necessarily) actually preview a quite specific and concrete career yet to unfold. Man it seems is essentially and most characteristically a "symbolizing" creature. He does become most truly himself when he is giving symbolic expression to who and to what he is and to where he finds he is going.
MYSTERY REFLECTING THE ISSUES AT CRISIS
To some extent, everyone who "acts out o f character" poses a mystery. People wonder about him. What's going on? What's he up to? But for a really close look into what that mystery is about one would obviously have to consult the person himself. Failing that, it would at least be useful to have some access to questions that the person himself was phrasing, questions about some "mystery," for example. In m y own example, "acting out o f character" led, and quite "literally" so, to the creating o f a very definite mystery. What can we learn from this? Looking at the intensity o f the mystery, one sees first o f all a clue to possible subjective experiences that the person m a y be struggling with. I set about being an author o f a mystery story and quite deliberately and actively, too, attempted to keep this project a secret. Making m y own mystery and keeping my own secret were therefore something pretty important to me. But, on the other hand (and stepping back here for a moment), the review o f m y life situation out o f which this effort arose shows quite a different picture. In contrast to m y " m a s t e r y " o f all the mysteries at hand in m y assuming the "out o f character" role o f author, certain mysteries in my real life were, in contrast, offering no such mastery at all. In terms o f m y becoming a psychiatrist, for example, I was still very much an initiate. I was still enduring all the anxieties o f entering a profession which promises to take one to the very deepest secrets o f the mind, to confront one with madness, with one's own madness perhaps, to make one a practitioner o f a profession itself steeped in mystique. I was in addition the passive and not at all the active petitioner for the new status o f parenthood. And I was no master certainly o f whatever story I'd be unfolding to m y analyst, another anxious and passive confrontation with a mystery, here the mystery o f growth. 2 Thus in terms o f his real life this would-be author and 2Grotjahn's (1970) theory of the popular interest in mystery stories would probably fit very nicely here. In his suggesting that this popular interest really reflects the protracted efforts on the part of the individual to solve a mystery of childhood which never found solution in that period, namely the mystery of one's parents' sexuality, Grotjahn hints that other normal growth phenomena, other developmental milestones, etc., can likewise be intimately experienced as genuine mystery and as such come to the fore to demand new resolutions.
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would-be master of mysteries and secrets was nothing more than another poor soul struggling to cope with the intensities of a whole bunch of mysteries hitting him all at once, of madness, life, and growth in this case. A subjective experience, in other words, stemming from a very real life situation actually reversed itself. But the intensity with which he projected mystery and generated suspense, even though masterfully and actively, did give away his deeper experience. The precise ways that the individual seeks to phrase his mystery, and the precise questions which then emerge and which can be asked, are another route to uncovering a person's subjective experience. The whole mystery about authorship, for example, boils down to one two-part question. How does one write something which gets published? How does one become an author? In terms of the psychosocial issues being wrestled out here, they are clearly generativity (i.e., how do I make something?) and identity (i.e., how do I become something?); in formal Eriksonian terms, Generativity vs. Stagnation and Identity vs. Identity Diffusion. In terms of the person's subjective experience, these issues are thus clearly experienced as overlapping and coinciding. Erikson's life stages, in other words, from the point of view of the "actor" are not experienced as the discrete and separate stages they appear to be on paper. Another part to my mystery has to do with something being unknown or forgotten. The story murderer's own story sharply portrays this in the focus on something concealed in the past. Thus another question being posed is Can a person ever be known without first revealing, unraveling, or confronting things which are concealed in his past? Put another way: Can I ever be truly known to myself without first revealing to myself things which have been hidden? Must I, for example, encounter anew my father of my childhood, or myself as a child, even now as I'm just beginning to look for an analyst to work with and feeling pretty anxious about that? Clearly the symbolism of searching for an unknown person does call to mind, in addition to one's search for one's "self," my decision to find an analyst with whom to begin my personal analysis. And having the story's hero enter a new situation, probe, and dig deep for answers, try to get things which are hidden to come forward and be known, is my symbolic vehicle for trying to find and put together the parts to something like a puzzle and thus hopefully complete and confirm an identity, to be "known," in other words, to myself. A question about one's future also emerges from the mysteries of the story. Thus still another question is asked: How does one take that which is past and the reality o f that which is present and then link up both to an unfolding future? The hero of the story, one recalls, takes his insights into the past, along with his grasp of a very real immediate situation, and then wonders where it might lead. His wish, of course, is to come up with the right creative, innovative plan that will make everything work out all right. Still another question which is posed here is the question about the special qualities that make one's character unique. Could it be, the author wonders, that
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the uniqueness of character is really the unique mixture of things which are done
with things yet to be done, of matters resolved with matters still in suspense? Is it the still-to-be-put-together puzzle of our lives, the still-to-be-finished story of our lives, which makes the essence o f our uniqueness as characters? Just as a certain unpredictability seems necessary for any given generation to fulfill its function (Erikson, 1963), is it likewise true that something like a uniqueness o f our "suspension" (uniqueness "in suspension?") is really what provides each of us with a personality which has its own unity? At the very end of Odet's play The Flowering Peach, Noah looks up at the rainbow. His ordeal is over and he knows that he now has another chance for a new start. He knows, too, that it is up to man what will happen next. Yes, the lessons of the past are there to be uncovered and learned; the trials of the present are at their crisis; and a future waits. "Yes, I hear you, God," Noah says. "Now it's in man's hands to make or destroy the world. I'll tell you a mystery." I quote this speech because it makes this same point. The clearest, most condensed, and yet still pointed expression of a life turning point and also the most accurate symbol for the insights which then become possible for the individual is the symbolism o f a "mystery." POINT OF NOVELTY, POINT OF TURNING In offering the individual a unique and special sort o f experience, a "novel" experience as it were, "acting out o f character" brings forward for the individual some universal symbols o f rebirth. There is, for example, a leave-taking, a getting into something new, a trying on o f something different, and then a return. As to whether or not this symbolic process actually prophecies for the person a true gain, genuine knowledge, or growth, or whether the sequence foretells any new levels o f maturity, one cannot predict. In m y example I removed myself physically from my wife by going alone upstairs to a den to do my thinking and writing. I left her mentally as well. And I repeated this process frequently and regularly over the course o f many months. After a period of time something happened, something changed. It was over and I "came back." This was the sequence. This same sequence is also found in young people taking leave in other ways, taking leave of their families, for example, or their countries, or even their customary ways of doing things (or, perhaps, even of their senses). The "places" gone to and returned from, in other words, can be geographic and/or mental (i.e., another "state" o f mind). The question I raise is whether or not the individual who thus "acts out o f character" at a life turning point is actually aware o f and possibly even deliberate about his manipulation o f such obvious symbols. Sometimes, at least to a limited extent, it does seem that individuals are aware. The gesture at recognizing and marking a life turning point, and also possibly catalyzing some hoped for
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new growth, does seem pretty transparent in the example o f the youngster going off to camp the first time and conferring on himself his own new "nickname." Other times it seems less in the person's awareness, like the fellow who grew his beard when he began a new job. Was he actually aware of giving symbolic expression to "new growth"? Was the individual who took the LSD trip at a life turning point consciously confirming that he was someone who had "tripped," who had gone somewhere and come back again (and perhaps even taken a fall)? Is the person who goes abroad just to "bum around" conscious that the symbolism he is generating confirms as well as catalyzes an arrival at a new place? My primary thesis here is that there is indeed something in the sort of "novel" experiences that I am talking about, namely the kind that occurs at a life turning point, that is meant not only to recognize but also to catalyze a situation of growth, o f "passage." But why must the individual himself be the one to make it happen? Why must he go to such symbolic trouble, and over transitions so relatively unexciting (at least as far as his community seems concerned)? The answer I think lies in the fact that ours is a fast-changing and unevenly progressing society. Virtually every significant transition in an individual's life cycle is marked by ceremonies which either have long since lost their symbolic clout or else have been diluted to the point of just being a series o f unexciting and unconnected happenings. Transitions, in other words, are as often as not experienced by the individual as private and lonely moments, not as high points, mutually shared in by others in his community. Ceremonies of recognition and confirmation are simply too much out o f synch. In fact, it is this particular feature of our society which seems to be the most popular reflector o f our era, the "character" o f our era. We live, we are told, in an Era o f a Technological Explosion, a Population Explosion, a Morality Explosion, an Information Explosion: we live with a Counterculture. We suffer Historical Dislocation. We suffer from Future Shock. As a society, suffering as we are such profound impairment to fundamental symbols o f transition, matters relating to growth and change, to transition and identity, are now critical matters for every individual. The so-called Identity Crisis is not simply a concern of one generation, the generation of youth. It's everybody's concern. It's society's concern. Our very existence, our sine qua non for claiming an identity as a species, is not unrealistically under threat. It is in the character o f our era that more and more people are not only about to gain identities and about to lose identities, but simply more aware of identity as well. So the individual goes to such trouble because his society no longer provides him with his symbols. It hardly is able to provide itself with.the right symbols. Three meanings to this urge to create a "novel" experience at a life turning point, then, are (1) a heightened need to actively manage the unfolding o f a psychosocial identity, (2) a need to more actively catalyze and confirm it, and along the way (3) a need to more imaginatively author any and all experiences which might provide the necessary symbolic assists. "Acting out o f character,"
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then, is the discovery and rediscovery o f that blend o f symbols which will provide for the individual the critical assist he needs in negotiating the unfolding of his "self." One might pause here and speculate about all those other examples of this phenomenon. Can these same meanings be given to drug experiences, to traveling arotmd, or even to temporary indulgence o f symptoms o f mental breakdown? Are those individuals doing these things basically trying to find themselves? In this regard it is interesting to recall that the expression used by the junkie when he shoots up heroin to get "high" is the same expression used by the navigator (in a different "vein," of course): they are both getting their "fix." But the one is either lost or seeking to lose himself (perhaps to later find himself?.), while the other, who may or may not already be lost, is definitely ready to find himself, definitely ready to be sure o f his direction again, ready to resume his course. The discovery of one's character and also one's confirmation in one's identity do not happen in a social vacuum. There is an ongoing, mutually complementary and mutually vitalizing process. The individual and his society both have matters of identity to work out. One's discovery of one's own character resonates with the discovery o f the character of one's community (and the discovery of literally everything around one), and this discovering mutually resonates with the being discovered. In this, each gets confirmed as being unique in character and as having character. I grew creative at a time of creating growth. Perhaps it was simply as Keniston says (1963). As the generational past becomes more and more distant, and as the future, in turn, becomes so very unpredictable, we all may be called on to make not only additional efforts but also more creative efforts at getting it all to come out right -- at "getting it all together."
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable encouragement and guidance of Margaret Brenman-Gibson in preparing this paper.
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