A brief explanation of Identity Confusion

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:09]Hi. In the video today, going to be looking at what identity confusion is.

[00:00:13]An identity confusion is is different to that experienced in a normal part of human development, especially in the face of adolescence.

[00:00:22]What we're looking at is the lack of the integration of the self. Now, this is often caused by abusive or traumatic experiences during the early developmental in childhood. And what this means is that the the individual lacks the ability to really understand and know who they are. And they may even go through the normal adolescent phase and not be going through the sort of same motions of picking up likes and beliefs that creates a sense of the self. And the reason for this is that the traumatic experiences, especially in childhood, cause the the need for survival of the trauma to overcome the need to develop the self. What happens is the trauma starts creating the process of compartmentalization or separation of aspects of the self in order to maintain, hold, and contain the various traumatic experiences. So, prevent the overwhelm or to focus on surviving the trauma, that's what the brain decides to do. So, it's about focusing the mechanism of development around coping and dealing with the trauma in the best way possible, rather than what would might be considered to be the sort of the luxury maintenance phase of development, and therefore the lack of integration of the self. And the sort of things we look at is understanding whether or not a person feels like they're a stranger to themself. I.e., that there are other parts or aspects to themselves that feel separate, that don't really feel like they belong. So, that's very different from knowing who you are, but being confused that because your likes and and dislikes sort of keep changing and manifesting different ways. This is fundamentally understanding about who the person actually is. So, the feeling of being me and knowing who me is and knowing that that is fully me is often very absent in identity confusion. So, we often ask questions about whether it feels like there's some sort of internal conflict going on, whether it feels like aspects of the self don't belong or feel like they are strange or very different to what is formed as the self. And there can often be childlike parts or childlike aspect to the behavior or to the functioning, which may appear very sort of alien or confusing to the person that we're talking to. And childlike is very different to childish. For example, I can be very childish, and I can do very childish type things because that seems like the nice thing to do in the context and it's fun and it's enjoyable, but I'm not childlike. I don't sort of start acting and behaving as if I am a child to all intents and purposes going through an adult body.

[00:03:00]So, we start looking at the confusion of self, and that childlike part is important because that often gives us that hook into early traumatic experiences where the development may have closed down at that phase in being in order to manage and cope with that trauma. So, as traumatic experiences are taking place early in childhood, the nature of the development forms around that trauma like a scar around a wound and can get stuck there, and that stuckness can then play itself out later on in adult life. It can be very confusing, can be very distressing, and it can really get in the way of that person's ability to function and feel as if they are fully invested and present and belonging in the world in which they inhabit as an adult. So, I hope that's been a useful video, and there are three others in the series prior to this at this stage, looking at amnesia, depersonalization, and derealization.

[00:03:56]And next up, we'll be looking at identity alteration, which is the most severe phase of this series, looking at the way that dissociation and trauma are linked in in managing aspects of everyday life.