ABSTRACT
Social developments have accelerated at such a rapid pace since the 1980s that many cultural theorists have discerned a break in the general course of modernity, so that a new designation is required for our present age. Philosophy and the social sciences continue to struggle to understand and categorize the present. This chapter outlines the changes that have been undergone by psychoanalytic concepts, especially in regard to personality development, and focuses on the evolving understanding of adolescence and identity formation. Introduced into psychoanalysis by E. Erikson, identity is a limit-concept that can be defined both sociologically and psychologically. Ego psychology's depiction of human development elicited a great deal of psychoanalytic and social scientific criticism in the decades following 1960, during which new developmental concepts led to important modifications of earlier views on adolescence. The constant demand for self-transformation and self-realization extends into the realm of consumption.
