Identity Reinvention: How Epiphanies Impact Women’s Career Paths and Identities

In recent years, there has been an explosion of research on identity work as scholars seek to understand how individuals create and recreate their identities in response to experiences that call one’s identity into question. Researchers who study identity transitions often draw on the three-phase model proposed by Van Gennep (1960) that begins with separation, which entails disengaging from a prior role/identity, followed by liminality, wherein the individual transitions to a new role/identity, and culminates in integration, in which the individual incorporates the new role/identity into their self-identity. Identity transitions are catalyzed by expected career events as well as unexpected experiences, such as career-ending injuries and epiphanies. In this study, we analyze 80 career narratives elicited through two qualitative studies of mid- and late-career professional women. From these 80 cases, we uncovered 27 cases in which the informant had experienced at least one identity-implicating epiphany. Through our analysis of these cases, we discover how professional women reinvent themselves in response to epiphanic experiences and unveil the profound impact that “identity reinvention” has on women’s careers and identities. Based on these results, we propose an alternative model of the identity transition process.