著者

田村 健二

出版者

日本社会学会

雑誌

社会学評論 (ISSN:00215414)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.23, no.1, pp.44-52, 1972-07-30

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E. Singer ("Identity vs. Identification", in Review of Existential Psychology, 1965, pp. 160173) states that identity is "a personal definition arrived at by attention to and cultivation of individual experience", whereas identification is "a self-definition by adoption, a self-delineation provided by others". On the basis of various theories and experimental data, Singer concludes that identity and identification are mutually incompatible. In my opinion, this conclusion is only partially correct and contains some important oversights with respect to the nature of human development. <BR>The first oversight pertains to the individual experience which he views as central to identity. In most instances of his discussion, he appears to regard individual experience as intra-individual experience which is separate from human relationships. However, I wish to point out that a human being cannot exist in separation from human relationships. That is to say, a human being has both intra-individual experience and joint experience shared with others. He exists by autonomously combining these two kinds of experience. The individual experience of a human being is precisely this autonomous experience which combines these two kinds of experience as its constituents. <BR>A second oversight pertains to the existence of two kinds of identification. The identification referred to by Singer signifies merely the adoption of a self-definition provided by others in joint experience with them. This should be designated as "identification within joint experience", and it certainly is incompatible with identity. However, this joint experience is not the sole type of experience in human relations. Rather, there is experience wherein all component experiences, including the above joint experience, are mutually accepted and contained. Human identity develops mostly in this experience in which all personal individual experiences are stably contained. This principle is often evident in the processes of child development and counselling. Therein we can find that a parent or counsellor, trusted by the self, may provide the self with a more stable, supportive definition. The self then adopts the stable self-definition provided by the other and thus grows more stabilized. It is then that the self, on the basis of this stability, undertakes to acknowledge and accept all of its own experiences genuinely and thus is able to develop its identity. This process should be designated "identification within over-all inclusive experience". Far from being incompatible with identity, it actually fosters identity. <BR>When the components mutually have this over-all, inclusive experience and identity is possessed, a reconstruction of new joint experience takes place. It is here that a true "I and you" solidarity comes into being.