This paper will examine the psychosocial identity development theories of Erik Erikson, William Cross, Vivienne Cass and Linda

Critique of Myer’s Theory of Optimal Psychology

The most powerful contribution of Myers (1988) Optimal Theory, and its application to the identity development process (Myers, et al., 1991), is that it provides an affirming and all-inclusive alternative to the suboptimal worldview that forms the foundation of the theories explored thus far. In articulating an optimal worldview that is multidimensional, Myers (1988, 1991, 1993, 1998) challenges the one-dimensional Eurocentric scientific frame of reference that can only acknowledge what is perceived by the five senses. Such a framework has led to the development of fragmented or inadequate models of identity development based on external markers (Myers, 1998). By its very conscious drawing on the shared beliefs and values of ancient African, Asian, Native American and other aboriginal peoples, contemporary western physics, mystical Christianity, etc., optimal theory underscores the fact that all peoples come from a common gene pool of ancient Africa (Myers, 1988; Myers, et al., 1991), the basis of the belief that all of humanity is indeed one.

The most important contribution of the Optimal Theory Applied to Identity Development (OTAID), Myers’, et al. (1991) is that it provides an approach to identity development that makes it possible to both honor and transcend the “diversity markers” that make us unique as individuals and as groups (Myers, 1998). Building on previous theoretical work of others theorists, Myers, et al. (1991), extend the identity development process of “embracing” that part of oneself that is devalued (Baldwin, 1972) into embracing one’s unity with all of humanity. This principle of unity is a fundamentally spiritual position that extends this process beyond the framework of psychosocial developmental (Haggins, 1995). This emphasis on the oneness of the human experience has also given the OTAID model its capacity to encompass the realities of multiple identities; a theory that can reflect the real identity development process of a disabled African American lesbian. In acknowledging the unity of the spiritual/material realms, Myers (1988) provides an alternative to the materialistic Eurocentric view of disability that focuses on deviance from social/physical norms, resulting in the alienation of the disabled person from their body/condition and that individual from the rest of “normal” society. This unity principle provides a means of healing the alienation from the body/condition, from other disabled people and from the larger society, laying the groundwork for wholistic disability identity development that encompasses more than the current focus on material “rights” and minority culture.

Another important contribution of the OTAID is that is resolves a powerful polarization found in the social change aspect of minority identity development work, the oppressor/oppressed duality that holds that one cannot be both. Making use of Friere’s brilliant analysis that no one is oppressed without their own complicity and that all people ascribing to it are oppressed by a suboptimal system (cited in Myers, 1998), Myers explains accepting the oneness of humanity challenges individuals to see themselves as capable of being both oppressor and oppressed. For disabled people in particular, who have been socialized on a most profound bodily level to be passive recipients of medical/government/charity services, this is a particularly powerful challenge. At the same time, it provides a means of liberation that does not require the external oppressor change before personal and community change can begin to occur; an approach that ultimately changes the larger social dance of oppression by changing one’s own steps in that dance (Lerner, 1985).

The very sweeping scope of the Optimal Theory Applied to Identity Development (OTAID) is both its greatest strength and, at least for now, its greatest limitation. The OTAID model is grounded in abstract and metaphysical concepts that have not yet lent itself to the development of a comprehensive measure of its phases, although various attempts have been made (Myers, et al., 1991; Sevig, 1994). It is difficult to know whether this non-development of a viable measure is related to the philosophical optimal theory position which questions the Eurocentric scientific approach that can only acknowledge reality perceived by the senses. A fact worth noting is that what research is being done using OTAID constructs is generally seems to be done by graduate students as recently found in a PsychInfo search (Haggins, 1995; Sevig, 1994; Finley, 1998). Whether these two observations are related is a matter for speculation, but does it say anything of established practitioners and researchers who rely on tried and (maybe not so) true methodologies or categories for their research?

This limited history of research has led to few opportunities to refine the OTAID model; though some work is being done identifies some limitations that can be addressed. Finley (1998), in a qualitative study of women with multiple identities, did find that the development of those identities was more complex than the OTAID theorized. The resulting identity pattern was of various aspects of the women’s identities developing independently in relation to different environmental factors. The developmental process was of multiple interweaving and overlapping spirals that only much later in the process resulted in the theorized intersection of identities. In addition, these environmental factors influence development that presents another limitation of the OTAID model. Given the suboptimal nature of the world that we all inhabit, it is difficult yet to understand how the identity development process intersects with social change work required to transform the suboptimal world, particularly in a community as embattled for its very physical survival as the disability community. The sheer weight of the realities of disabled people isolated in medicalized and familial environments that deny them access to alternative views of their own experience can make the process of disabled people nurturing each others’ development extremely problematic, if not downright embattled. In a discussion of the Transformation phase of the OTAID model, Myers, et al. (1991) states that “harsher forms of victimization are unlikely to be brought into experience” in this phase (p.61) does not reflect the stark survival realities facing the minority communities in the suboptimal world in which it must function. The suboptimal view of disability has at its core a belief that life with a disability is not worth living (Gallagher, 1995), which has led to systematic denial of life-saving medical measures to disabled people, such as standing Do Not Resuscitate orders for ventilator users in the majority of US hospitals with no consultation with the ventilator user, denial of transplant surgeries on the basis of disability, forced to live in institutions and nursing homes, denied developmental services to reach full human potential (NDY, 1999). The intensity of the struggle against such overwhelming hegemonic controls over life and the body makes it difficult yet to envision how the later phase of transformation will be achieved.

The development of the Optimal Theory Applied to Identity Development (OTAID) has introduced into the field of multicultural work a profound tool for rethinking the various approaches to identity development human differences have generated and, in so doing, has provided a profound tool for evaluating worldviews that have unconsciously functioned within those approaches. Learning to honor differences while embracing the oneness of all of humanity is a profound path of healing in the personal, professional, and spiritual realm.

This examination of these multiple identity development models has identified various salient elements of the identity development process that intersect with what is currently known to be true of the disability experience. Erikson’s emphasis on psychosocial development being a dynamic interactive process between the individual and their social/historical/cultural environment mirrors the current disability community’s definition of disability as an interactive reality between the disabled individual and their environment (Gill, 1987). From Cross’ model of racial identity development, we find the emphasis on a positive in-group identity as an essential element of racial identity development mirrored in the current development of disability pride arising from the “identity politics” of the disability community (Anspach, 1979; Weeber, 1999). From Cass’ model, the dual dynamics of developing a positive personal identity facilitated by an increasingly public positive identification with a community devalued by society can also be found in disabled people’s movement towards identifying positively with the disability community (Corbett, 1994). In Myers’ OTAID model, the emphasis on honoring one’s uniqueness, as well as one’s unity with all humanity, provides a framework for honoring one’s place in the disability community while healing the alienation from body/condition, society and between people with different disabilities. These theories and models will serve as an analytical framework for examining research about identity issues related to the disability identity development process.