The Ideal Self and Other

THIS IS ONE OF A SERIES of papers1 on identification, individuation, the emergence of human relatedness, and the nature of the human bond (Schecter, 1968a), (1969), (1971) —all based on the premise that observations of normal psychic development can contribute to the deepening of psychoanalytic theory and therapy. Some observations relevant to this endeavor are derived from a formal seven-year research project on early ego development, more years of one-way screen teaching observations on "normal" development as well as from psychoanalytic practice—and just plain living experience.

From infancy through old age we are "possessed"—in various degrees of differentiation—by ideal images and concepts that have a certain peremptory quality in the organization of our experience. Hence, Freud (1914), (1923) resorted to the personifications Super -Ego and Ego-Ideal to metapsychologically cover many of the experiences we will be concerned with here on the phenomenological level. With each new stage or crisis of personality development the person may find an opportunity—and socially he is often given the adaptational task—of transforming the shape of the ideal self and other—and their relationships—in a direction that is at the same time more realistic, and yet hopefully not overlycynical and bitter in its disillusionment. As Winnicott has demonstrated, illusions are necessary for the growth of imagination. Yet, as development proceeds there is a need for what we may call a