IDENTITY FORMATION AND ITS ROLE IN OPTIMAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: A PSYCHOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF ARTIST JACKSON POLLOCK

Abstract

Celebrated artist Jackson Pollock challenged the concept of art by moving beyond paintbrush and easel to throwing paint across canvasses laid out on the floor, and using his entire body to create an abstract image. However, despite this capacity for originality, Pollock’s life was bracketed by severe binge drinking, alcoholism, and emotional instability. The importance of identity formation for healthy development is illustrated by a psychobiographical study of Jackson Pollock. Pollock’s difficulties in establishing a stable identity seemed to play an integral part in impeding a positive life course. The developmental theory of Erik Erikson was the lens through which Pollock’s life was studied, with a focus on Erikson’s proposed fifth stage of development, Identity versus Role Confusion. From the study it emerged that it was largely the individuals who surrounded Pollock who shaped him into what they wanted him to be with Pollock lacking the stable sense of self to protect him from a society that treated both him and the art he poured himself into as a commodity to be celebrated and vilified on whim. Alcoholism would cause his death at the age of 44, when, while heavily intoxicated, Jackson Pollock drove his car into a tree.