Freud
Freud first raised the matter of identification (german: Identifizierung) in 1897, in connection with the illness or death of one's parents, and the response "to punish oneself in a hysterical fashion...with the same states f illnessthat they have had. The identification which occurs here is, as we can see, nothing other than a mode of thinking". The question was taken up again psychoanalytically "in Ferenczi's article, 'Introjection and Transference', dating from 1909", but it was in the decade between "Primary identification
Primary identification is the original and primitive form ofNarcissistic (secondary) identification
Narcissistic identification is the form of identification following abandonment or loss of an object. This experience of loss starts at a very young age. An example: wearing the clothes or jewellery of a deceased loved one.Hart, H. H. (1947), Problems of Identification. Psychiatric Quarterly, 21, 274-293. In "Mourning and Melancholia" Freud, having "shown that identification is a preliminary stage of object-choice", argued that the experience of loss sets in motion a regressive process that "served to establish an ''identification'' of the ego with the abandoned object". In "The Ego and the Id", he went on to maintain that "this kind of substitution has a great share in determining the form taken by the ego and that it makes an essential contribution towards building up what is called its 'character'". Lacan, in his theory of the Imaginary, would develop the latter point into his view of "the ego is constituted in its nucleus by a series of alienating identifications" - part of his opposition to any concept of an "autonomous" and conflict-free ego.Partial (secondary) identification
Partial identification is based on the perception of a special quality of another person. This quality or ideal is often represented in a "leader figure" who is identified with. For example: the young boy identifies with the strong muscles of an older neighbour boy. Next to identification with the leader, people identify with others because they feel they have something in common. For example: a group of people who like the same music. This mechanism plays an important role in the formation of groups. It contributes to the development of character and the ego is formed by identification with a group (group norms). Partial identification promotes the social life of persons who will be able to identify with one another through this common bond to one another, instead of considering someone as a rival.Partial identification and empathy
Freud went on to indicate the way "a path leads from identification by way of imitation toAnna Freud and identification with the aggressor
In her classic book ''The Ego and the Mechanism of Defence'', Anna Freud introduced "two original defence mechanisms...both of which have become classics of ego psychology", the one being altruistic surrender, the other identification with the aggressor. Anna Freud pointed out that identification with parental values was a normal part of the development of the superego; but that "if the child introjects both rebuke and punishment and then regularly projects this same punishment on another, 'then he is arrested at an intermediate stage in the development of the superego'". The concept was also taken up in object relations theory, which particularly explored "how a patient sometimes places the analyst in the role of victim whilst the patient acts out an identification with the aggressor" in the analytic situation.With the analyst
Mainstream analytic thought broadly agrees that interpretation took effect "by utilizing positive transference and transitory identifications with the analyst". More controversial, however, was the concept of "the terminal identification" at the close of analysis, where "that with which the patient identifies is their strong ego... ridentification with the analyst's superego". Lacan took strong exception to "any analysis that one teaches as having to be terminated by identification with the analyst...There is a beyond to this identification...this crossing of the plane of identification". Most Lacanians have subsequently echoed his distrust of "the view of psychoanalysis that relies on identification with the analyst as a central curative factor". How far the same criticism applies, however, to those who see as a positive therapeutic result "the development of a self-analytic attitude... uilt onidentification with and internalization of the analyst's analytic attitude" is not perhaps quite clear.In psychoanalytic thinking today
Much has been written on identification since Freud. Identification has been seen both as a normal developmental mechanism and as a mechanism of defence. Many types of identification have been described by other psychoanalysts, including counter-identification (Fliess, 1953), pseudoidentification (Eidelberg, 1938), concordant and complementary identifications (Racker, 1957), and adhesive identification (Bick, 1968): "the work of Bick and others on adhesive identification, exploring the concept of the 'psychic skin'".Judith Mitrani and Joyce McDougall, ''A Framework for the Imaginary'' (London 2008) p. 152See also
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Identification (Psychology) Conformity Defence mechanisms Narcissism Psychoanalytic terminology Object relations theory