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Commentary on "Feminist Perspectives on Erikson's Theory: Their Relevance for Contemporary Identity Development Research"

In their article, Sorell and Montgomery (2001) addressed three general questions dealing with the current usefulness of Erikson’s (1963) theory of life-span development and its relevance for contemporary identity research. The authors approached their questions from a feminist standpoint, assessing the extent to which Erikson’s theory may have excluded the lived realities of women’s lives and the lives of other marginalized groups. Sorell and Montgomery began by identifying core questions and concerns that they believe organize Erikson’s theory and responded to the following general issues: (a) Does the historical and sociocultural context of the theory’s development impair its contemporary usefulness? (b) Can a theory that ties individual development to a biological ground plan, thus emphasizing a certain uniformity of experience, offer guidance for investigations of identity as it is constructed in a rapidly changing, multicultural context? (c) Are there implicit biases of the theory that render it useless as a framework for understanding women’s—or even men’s—development? Certainly, some of the issues that Sorell and Montgomery (2001) raised have appeared in earlier feminist writings regarding Erikson’s work. Gilligan (1982) argued that women’s lives are deeply relational and that mutuality, respect, and caring are central to women’s development. Gilligan believed that Erikson’s (1963) theory of life-span development did not serve women well. She viewed Erikson’s eight-stage life-span scheme as a male-oriented model focused on issues of separation–individuation and not on those of care and relationship. Gilligan insisted that Erikson needed to prepare a separate psychosocial scheme of life-span development for women to capture their relational concerns. Franz and White (1985) took Gilligan’s suggestion a step further and actually proposed an eight-stage scheme of relational (attachment) development designed to accompany what they viewed as Erikson’s original model of individuation. However, unlike Gilligan, Franz and White viewed both attachment and individuation models of life-span personality development to be essential to optimal development of both women and men. Archer (1992) and