Identification

Abstract

The mechanism of identification is considerably more complex than those of denial and projection. As with projection, it requires the capacity to differentiate between self and other. However, identification further involves a differentiation and modification within the ego; new ego structures—including the superego and the ego ideal—develop as an integral part of the process of identification. As with the other two defenses, the beginnings of identification may be seen early in life. Different from denial and projection, identification continues to develop through adolescence.

Identification refers to modifying the subjective self or behavior, or both, in order to increase one’s resemblance to an object taken as a model.

Schafer (1968b)

Identification represents a process of modifying the self-schema on the basis of a present or past perception of an object which is taken as a model.

Sandler (1960), p. 150

Identification used as a defense replaces “a real object relationship by making good a loss through the internalization of the lost object.”

Menaker (1979), p. 215

Identification is also “a necessary, normal, positive developmental aspect of ego growth… it is that mechanism without which human relatedness would be impossible.

Menaker (1979), p. 215

The hungry infant’s longing for oral gratification is the origin of the first, primitive type of identification, an identification achieved by refusion of self- and object-images and founded on wishful fantasies of oral incorporation of the love object.

Jacobson, (1954), p. 99

We are what we eat.