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To Be or Not To Be?
The Question of Identity in Tertiary Students
Mary O’Brien
Counsellor
Griffith University
Abstract
Why students present to University Counselling Services and how Counsellors work with them, is often a mystery. In
reality, students present for many different reasons involving academic, vocational and personal difficulties.
Counsellors respond differently, depending on their experience and orientation. But is there a common thread which
runs through the experience of tertiary students, whether school leavers or mature age? In this paper the author
suggests that for some students, coming to university precipitates a crisis of identity, which threatens the student’s
capacity to continue their studies successfully and in some cases, even restricts their capacity to learn. Three cases are
described in detail and a further two vignettes are given to illustrate how these crises might be presented to and
understood by the Counsellor.
In borrowing the opening phrase of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, I was concerned not so much with
his consideration of death and suicide, but as the last part of my title suggests, with the question of
identity. ‘What to be or what not to be?’ might have been a better title. In thinking about my work
as a University Counsellor and the reasons students consult me, I was struck by the realisation that a
lot of the difficulties students present concern problems of identity. This is perhaps hardly
surprising given that so much of our personal identity is tied up with what we do, our occupation or
profession.
Tertiary students, whether school leavers or mature age (one has to be only over 22 to be considered
‘mature age’ at University) generally come to University to study a course with the object of
becoming something, even if the course is not strictly vocational. The experience provides an
opportunity for identity formation, building on earlier identifications or substituting new ones. Once
again it is hardly surprising that for some students, coming to University precipitates a crisis of
identity, and identity confusion develops as a result of conflicting, often unconscious, demands on
the individual.
For Erik Erikson, ‘identity’s architect’ as he was called in a recently published biography of the
same name (Friedman, 1999) ‘identity formation … is a lifelong development largely unconscious
to the individual and to his society.’ (Erikson, 1980 p.122) However he describes a stage between
adolescence and adulthood, which he calls young adulthood, in which there is a psychosocial
moratorium, a period of experimentation without commitment, during which the individual has to
find a niche within society and be recognised within it. In his book Identity and the Life Cycle,
Erikson quotes passages from George Bernard Shaw’s autobiographical writings, reflecting on his
youth. Shaw suffered a crisis of identity at age 20, leaving Ireland, his family, friends and
successful job in business, to go to England to try his hand as a writer. In Shaw’s words, he wanted
‘to avoid the danger of achieving success without identity’. He left behind a drunkard father with
whom he could not identify and a benign but distant mother, to create his own moratorium – a space
to discover who he could be. (1980 p. 110) According to Erikson, acute identity confusion occurs
when young people cannot make use of the institutionalised moratorium provided for them by
society, or cannot create one of their own as Shaw did (1980 p.131).
One such student was Rachel who presented in a state of crisis (names and other details have been
changed to protect the identity of the students discussed in this paper). She felt that she was out of
control, alternately crying or screaming at her boyfriend and feeling suicidal. Aged in her early
20’s, she reported having felt out of control since she was about 18, when the significance of
childhood sexual abuse by an uncle had really struck her. She recalled having rejected his advances
in no uncertain terms, but as her parents continued to use him as a regular babysitter, a relationship
of sorts continued throughout her adolescence. She recalled being plied with alcohol, marijuana and
cigarettes in her early adolescence and on occasion being forced to watch pornographic videos, or
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her uncle having sex with his girlfriend. At the time she felt the access to alcohol and drugs was
exciting and cool, but as a young adult she was shocked and appalled at her uncle’s exploitation of
her and her parents’ apparent naivete and/or complicity.
At 18 Rachel took a job stripping in a nightclub. At the time she presented to me she could not
understand how she could have done such a thing. She thought that she had felt ‘spoilt’, like
‘damaged goods’ and that she might as well exploit that for money. Around this time Rachel told
her mother about the uncle’s abuse of her and her mother apparently told her to ‘forget it’. Perhaps
this contributed to her thinking, as she put it, ‘Well if that’s all I’m good for, that’s what I’ll be!’
The stripping continued for some months until she could no longer maintain the split within herself
between her/not her. Rachel the stripper was a split off part of her which she could exploit for
money, but which she did not regard as really her. Once boys she had known from high school
started coming to the club to ‘hire her out’ she could no longer maintain this split. She became
afraid of running into clients in the street who knew her, knew her that is, as ‘Rachel’, and hence
stopped. She was puzzled and confused by the interest of these boys in her. ‘I would have gone out
with them for nothing if they had asked!’ she said, not recognising the distinction between the
projected, split off part of herself, which served as a sexual part object for these boys, and the
Rachel she and they had known at school.
It is not difficult to understand Rachel’s confusion. She was struggling within herself to reconcile
earlier identifications - Rachel the victim of sexual abuse, Rachel the young adult who aspired to
make something of herself and to distance herself from her family and the unacceptable
identifications it evoked in her. But how does one integrate a past that is anathema to one’s desired
sense of self and a past that is not recognised or acknowledged?
According to Erikson, such adolescents choose a negative identity ie they identify with all those
roles and identifications which are regarded as undesirable and dangerous and seek to obtain
recognition from society or significant adults in this way. They often put themselves, he says, into a
marginal social area, leaving it to the law or psychiatric agencies to decide what stamp to put on
their behaviour. (Erikson, 1980 p.141) I think we see this in Rachel’s foray into stripping, as she
said, ‘If that’s all I’m good for, that’s what I’ll be!’ She even managed to incur a conviction for
prostitution for her troubles.
Having ‘failed’ as a stripper Rachel turned to University as a means of escaping her past and
constructing a new identify for herself. She had an interest in two fields - law and social work. Law,
because she desperately wanted to right the wrongs of her childhood experience and social work
because she wanted to help others who had suffered similar experiences. She talked in terms of
wanting to protect women and children from the terrible injustice of sexual abuse. She wanted to
represent the victims and punish the perpetrators of such abuse. Part of her interest in law and
justice was associated with her wish for acknowledgment of the wrongs committed against her.
When this was not forthcoming from within her family she considered taking legal action against
her uncle, though she held little hope for the success of any such action.
In the absence of any recognition from her family, not only of the abuse but of her endeavours to
improve herself through education, giving up stripping and illicit drug use, Rachel’s resolve, in her
quest for a new identity, was beginning to flounder. For the first time her commitment to her studies
began to flag and she began to miss classes. She had already made plans to take a leave of absence
to travel the following year, as she had found travel a great salve in the past. She knew that it was a
form of running away, but she liked the freedom it gave her to be whoever she wanted. She was
having increasing difficulties in the relationship with her boyfriend, which contributed to her
identity confusion. He apparently would not let her forget her past, referring constantly to the
stripping, though this was before his time. So while she was desperately struggling to become
someone else - a ‘good girl’ if you like - he was constantly dragging up her ‘bad girl’ past, which
was the very thing that had attracted him to her in the first place.
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Thoughts of suicide surfaced occasionally as another way out, an escape from her unacceptable
identity. ‘If I can’t stop being Rachel the abuse victim and make something of myself, I’d rather be
dead!’ So perhaps my reference to Hamlet’s dilemma in the title of this paper was not entirely out
of place. Erikson suggests that ‘the wish to die’ in such adolescents is not always a suicidal wish,
but is rather a statement of frustration – ‘I don’t know’, ‘I give up’, ‘I quit’ - when faced with a
crisis of identity. (Erikson, 1980 p.137) This certainly was the sense in which I felt Rachel meant it.
My brief work with Rachel ended, as is often the case with my University work, without a clear
resolution, except that therapy was added to her list of options for trying to ‘become someone’ other
than the Rachel she felt she was.
For some students a crisis of identity can be exacerbated by anxieties about something being wrong
inside them. The crisis can be precipitated by a variety of things such as having to make an
important decision eg about whether or not to continue a course of study; or may be triggered by a
blow to their narcissism eg through the breakup of a relationship or the experience of serious
illness. Two such cases stand out in my mind.
Andrea was a student in her late 20’s who presented ostensibly because she could not decide
whether to resume her course after a period of leave of absence. Towards the end of the first
interview she let me know that she had a good friend who had been singing the praises of therapy
and she seemed to be asking indirectly if I thought it would help her too.
When we met for the second time, it was like drawing blood out of a stone. Andrea sat like a lump
waiting for me to draw her out with my questions. She said she had had no time to think about the
previous session and hence she was no further advanced in her dilemma about leave. It seemed to
me that she was unable or unwilling to think about this. When I raised the question of her friend’s
therapy, she seemed to spark up a little, although she still seemed to want me to drag things out of
her. It was as if in her mind ‘therapy’ was something that gets done to you and you don’t have to lift
a finger. I made this observation to Andrea, adding that I didn’t see how I could refer her to anyone
until I had some idea what she was wanting or needing and that perhaps this was what we needed to
focus on in the available sessions. She told me later that walking back to the carpark she had
thought to herself ‘That’s great! I’m so hopeless, I’m even a failure as a referral!’
The next session was the only time Andrea seemed able to speak without difficulty. Someone she
had known superficially had committed suicide. This provoked intense curiosity in Andrea about
what had been in the person’s mind to do such a thing. Why hadn’t they sought help? It reminded
Andrea of two incidents in her own life ‘a long time ago’ where she had felt bad but also unable to
seek help and she had engaged in self-harming behaviour. These were apparently the only occasions
on which acts of self-harm had occurred. It seemed as if Andrea wanted me to know about the part
of her, like her acquaintance, that had difficulty getting much needed help. Her difficulty talking to
me was another demonstration of this. She wanted me to know about her fear of ending up like this
person – alone, in despair or dead.
The impasse over leave continued without progress. I interpreted Andrea’s refusal to tackle this
question as a fear of making a commitment either way. She knew that if she delayed for long
enough the decision would be made for her. Once again it would be a case of Andrea being the
lump that gets acted upon by an outside agent, just as she expected me to drag things out of her, or a
therapist to ‘perform therapy’ on her.
I did in the end refer Andrea to a therapist, having established from my experience of her that she
desperately wanted therapy or at least something to penetrate her, although I was still unsure
whether she could use it.
Whereas Rachel was haunted by her past and struggling ‘to be’ someone else, and Andrea seemed
unable ‘to be’ anything of her own choosing, Peter a 25 year old student presented with a specific
anxiety that he might be prevented from practising in his chosen profession, ie prevented from
being what he wanted ‘to be’, because of an indiscretion committed ‘as a very young man’. He had
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been advised that he was unfit to donate blood because of admitting contact with a prostitute some 5
years earlier. He experienced this rejection as a narcissistic blow and proceeded over the next few
weeks to develop further anxieties about his health and his future.
Peter’s current anxieties triggered recollections of similar anxieties experienced as a child. He
recalled as a child coming home from a lovely day out with his family, suddenly and inexplicably,
becoming overwhelmed with anxiety that he was going to die. This experience of impending doom
following a pleasurable experience was an oft-repeated one, but one, which he eventually grew out
of, he said. To my ear this repeated experience had a distinctly oedipal ring about it. It was as if he
had actually killed the father, or usurped his place, through the experience of intense pleasure and
that he could expect severe punishment for this.
We can see parallels in his recent adult experience, in the pleasure experienced with the prostitute
followed by the horror of being told he could not give blood. It was as if his past was catching up
with him and threatening his future. His anxiety that he would be prevented from practising in his
chosen profession was a projection of his own guilty feelings associated with the pleasure
experienced. It was not that he feared any real external sanctions on him. Rather it was that he
feared he had done something to spoil his own chances and made himself unworthy to practise his
profession.
In my brief work with Peter (6 sessions in 2 1/2 months) we explored a number of other anxieties as
they emerged - his fear that he had something seriously wrong with him such as OCD or
schizophrenia, his fear of contamination from HIV or Hepatitis B, and anxiety about being overly
interested in sex and masturbation. A statement made by a young female tutor, who alleged that
young males engaged in sex and masturbation more than young females, provoked this latter
anxiety. Peter found this charge intensely offensive and he successfully defended the charge and his
anxiety in an assignment for which he earned a High Distinction! All these anxieties could be
understood as castration anxiety, involving a threat to his narcissism and guilt associated with
sexual pleasure.
Peter was disturbed by these anxieties and for a time I considered whether or not it would be helpful
to refer him for a psychiatric assessment. He became visibly anxious when I raised this with him,
unable to bear me say the word. I felt it would do more harm than good at that time but held the
question open for further consideration.
Although it was not possible to examine it to any great extent, it seemed possible that much of
Peter’s difficulties establishing himself as a grown man in the world had to do with unresolved
feelings towards his father from whom he was somewhat estranged. He had a stronger identification
with his mother about whom he felt protective.
By the end of our brief series of consultations, Peter was less frightened of his various anxieties, he
felt they intruded less into his life and was surprised at the level of concentration he was able to
apply to his studies. He was able to consider a psychiatric consultation in future should his anxieties
and intrusive thoughts recur and threaten to engulf him. But for the time being, he felt able to
pursue his studies and to work towards his goal of entering his chosen profession.
I would now like to turn to a more general discussion of the theme of this paper and in so doing,
give some further examples of the range of difficulties which confront tertiary students and which
may lead them to present to University Counselling Services.
It seems to me that for most students, whether school leavers or mature age, coming to University
involves the wish ‘to become somebody’. As Philip Wexler writes in a study of high school
students: ‘They were not struggling to become nobody, some high post-modernist definition of a
decentred self. They wanted to be somebody, a real and presentable self, and one anchored in the
verifying eyes of the friends whom they came to school to meet.’ (Smith & Wexler, 1992 p.147)
I think this statement applies equally to tertiary students. When they experience some obstacle ‘to
becoming somebody’, sometimes they seek help from University Counselling Services. Whether
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because of anxiety about their capacity ‘to be’ a teacher, a nurse or whatever, or some difficulty
about change, perhaps involving the giving up of former identities (mother, homemaker,
breadwinner), or anxiety to do with having to confront certain aspects of themselves or their past, or
some other reason, many students find being at University unsettling and experience obstacles that
threaten to get in the way of their ‘becoming somebody’. I have already given some instances of the
obstacles, which might be encountered in the three clinical examples I have presented. I would now
like to mention a few more, although I would point out that it is not possible to offer general
explanations, which would be applicable to all students. The same difficulty might have a different
meaning for another student, as we shall see.
One common obstacle, which confronts not only tertiary students, is procrastination. Procrastination
can be to do with the wish not to know one’s true capacities, never taking the risk of putting oneself
on the line, and harbouring a secret and triumphant belief in one’s superiority over others. In my
experience it can point to a narcissistic personality and a difficulty about taking things in.
I once saw a very bright young student who performed badly at high school because she could not
see the point in giving the teachers what they wanted. It had become an empty exercise in her mind.
She managed to get into University but became a terrible procrastinator, never starting an
assignment until after the due date. She kept pushing the limits until one day she came to me saying
that this time, she thought she had really ‘blown it’. She had to admit that even she would have
difficulty meeting the extension deadline she had been given. Part of her felt that she deserved to be
failed, though she doubted that that would be sufficient to help her mend her ways. She was
intrigued by my suggestion that she thought herself superior to other students and staff and
therefore shouldn’t have to demonstrate her understanding or ability to anyone. She had rationalised
her procrastination on this particular assignment by arguing that it was completely irrelevant. If she
were the academic in question she would not have set such a task. She was staggered when she
began to see the extent of her feelings of superiority. To submit work on time meant fitting in with
someone else. To submit work at all meant acknowledging that she had something to learn, that the
task was not an empty one, as she had made it, but an opportunity for her to develop, learn and
grow. In her mind, she was already there, already had everything she needed. Thinking about this
reminded her of her rebellion in high school against her parents and teachers who had such high
hopes and expectations of her. ‘Why should I give them what they want?’ she had thought to
herself, not recognising that it was she who was being deprived.
This student’s dilemma reminds me of another common stumbling block for many students, though
particularly school leavers. School leavers often come to University because it is expected of them,
without really having any idea what they want to study. In the absence of any clear ambition for
themselves, they sometimes come to fulfil someone else’s expectations or ambition, typically
parents. It is a case of wanting to become somebody, but who, and for whom? It is often a very
painful process for these students, sometimes involving the experience of failure, before they are
able to realise that the wish has to be theirs if they are to be successful.
This brings me to the final example I would like to give, which comes not from my own experience
but from an article written by Adam Phillips entitled ‘On Success’. (Phillips 1994 p.56) He writes
of a first year student who developed a phobia about going into the library. She felt it was too much
for her and that she couldn’t take it all in. She envied the library for all its books and the knowledge
it contained. So in this case, the difficulty of not being able to take something in, was not so much a
denial of need, as with the procrastinating student mentioned above, but rather to do with a sense of
overwhelming need, and envy of the means of satisfying it. Phillips relates this to the child’s envy
of ‘the mother who seems to have what he or she needs’. Just as it is necessary for the child to
overcome his or her envy in order to take in what is offered by the mother, similarly for the adult, or
student in this case, growth and learning depends on being able to overcome envy and tolerate need.
This last example may seem a long way off my theme, but I think not. The capacity to take
something in seems to me to strike at the core of what is involved in learning. Envy is just one of
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the obstacles to taking in. But without the capacity to take in, at least something of what is available
to us, it is not possible to be anything, let alone somebody.
(Note: This paper is based on a lecture that was given as part of a series ‘Understanding the Helping
Relationship’, organised by Paul Terry, Psychotherapist, Gold Coast District Health Services,
Queensland Health, in February 2000. The series examined developmental issues throughout the life
cycle, and how we in the helping professions can assist with these.
References
Erikson, Erik H. (1980) Identity and the Life Cycle, Norton, New York. First published 1959.
Friedman, Lawrence J. (1999) Identity’s Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson, Scribner, New York.
Phillips, Adam (1994) On Flirtation, Faber and Faber, London, Boston.
Smith, Richard and Wexler, Philip (eds) (1995) After Post-Modernism: Education, Politics and Identity, Falmer Press,
London.
The author may be contacted:
Mary O’Brien
Counsellor
Student Services
Mt Gravatt campus
Griffith University
NATHAN 4111
Ph: 07 3875 5657
Fax: 07 3875 6889
E-mail: m.obrien@mailbox.gu.edu.au
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