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Forty-two contributors, representing various disciplines, develop the thesis of identity in modern society. While many of the contributions have been published elsewhere, others appear for the first time in this volume. The first paper, The Problem of Ego Identity by Erik H. Erikson, establishes the tone of the book; yet other papers supply the sociological and sociopsychological concepts necessary for bringing identity issues peculiar to mass society into focus.
An intimate relationship between identity and anxiety is stressed. Anxiety is described, quoting Tillich, as man's reaction to the threat of nonbeing. For Rollo May, anxiety is 'the apprehension set off by a threat to some value which the individual holds essential to his existence as a personality' (p. 32). For Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, the lack of freedom for self-realization and the feeling of stagnation and 'nothingness' that goes with it, the sense of psychological death, is the root of anxiety in many people (p. 134). For Schneiderman, anxiety results from the assessment of the self as a failure in the context of highly particularized, unrelated situations (p. 165). For Kubie alone, in his essay, Some Unsolved Problems of the Scientific Career, the emphasis is placed on unconscious forces.
The book is well organized and the papers are interesting. One reads of the threat to identity when one is a stranger or when working in a bureaucratic society. The same holds true for the artist or the teacher, or in politics, in the family, in race, sex, and religion. There is dissolution of identity in 'brainwashing' or forceful indoctrination. The final papers deal with the evolution of personal styles in mass societies.
This volume will appeal to those interested in man's adaptation to his environment. The psychoanalyst will be disappointed that the unconscious is scarcely mentioned, and the imporance of intrapsychic