Research Paper on:
Self Identity Search

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
that he can no longer espouse the teachings of a favorite mentor? For Erik Eriksson it was the topic of identity, and his teacher was none other than Sigmund Freud.  This quest for identity and how one goes about establishing one lay at the bottom of the debate between both sociologists. Freud believed that everything was influenced by nature  not nurture and that a persons reaction to something was merely biological. This was an easy concept for Freud to espouse since he was trained as a clinical scientist. But,  for Eriksson, who was not trained in science, the emotional development and the nurture element seemed the more plausible answer to a persons development of self. Eriksson believed that  a person was presented with a certain set of crises during his or her life and it was the dealing and adapting to these crises, which shaped the personality and  identity of the individual. One can see that this would also take on other connotations as the factors of gender and race were thrown into the mix. In most models  a person is constantly at war with himself in an attempt to become an idealized version of himself. In this respect, good and evil are constantly at war within a  persons psyche(World Scripture 2002). It is this continuing war that begins with birth and continues throughout a persons lifetime. Some of the milestones that a person must come into contact  with and overcome include those of gender, race, environmental pressures, and social class. One always hopes that the end product, if truly there ever is an end product, will  be that of a well-adjusted person capable of existing happily within societies norms. Positive self-perception is a desired outcome because of the many long-term benefits in the areas of mental