Trauma And Growth-on The Process Of Fostered Adolescent’s Self-identity

Self-identity plays an important role in adolescent self-development, affecting individual’s life-long development. Currently, fostered adolescents at the stage of puberty are in the "psychological delay period" as said by Erickson. At the same time, the youth’s special growth environment, constantly changing foster families and interruption of fostering are rendering them sense of confusion, anxiety, or even fear, hence their puzzle in self-identity.This research, therefore, makes a case study on Children Welfare in City H, studying the process of self-identity of fostered children aged from12to18, a process always perceived as a socialized one by previous researchers. This research, however, begins with narrates of fostered youth, who are considered as the constructor in their own self-identity. The research listens to their voice, pays attention to their subjective feeling and experiences, and views self-identity a process of reflective construction of the objects. From that perspective, the group’s self-identity process is summarized as:Fuzzy period of self-identity, The awakening of self-identity, The crisis of identity, The reflection of identity construction, each stage accompanied by reflective experiences of the subject, namely, ignorance and curiosity, anxiety and unease, trauma and labor pains, as well as reflection and growth. Based on Giddens’s theory of self-identity, with Identity doubt as the beginning of self-cognition, traumatic incident as the foundation of reflective construction, self-identity of fostered youth evolves into defensive and aggressive identity to maintain the subject’s sense of security. In this process, self-identity of fostered youth is mostly subject to objective environment. Reflective choice and narcissism, shaping of interactive situation and innate resilience formed in trauma reflection become the mechanism that drive and maintain self-identity. As inspiration, from the four aspects of foster family, school education, institutional support and social work intervention to promote the healthy development of the foster adolescent self-identity Suggestions.