Idealization and the Holding of Ideals1

VANN SPRUIELL, IN HIS REVIEW of Freud's concept of idealization, mentions that "Freud never concentrated on idealization as a subject. Instead, he took it up in passing as part of his concern with larger matters" (1979, p. 778). When Freud did speak explicitly of idealization, it was usually in the context of his ideas about narcissism. In addition, implicit meanings of idealization can be gleaned in the development of Freud's concepts of internalization and structure building.

As happened with so much of Freud's thought, those who followed him were wont to take up one idea or another and elaborate it along the lines of their own interests and proclivities, so that we have several Freudian systems, varying in emphasis and sometimes verging on incompatibility. With regards to idealization, psychoanalysts working in the United States who were roughly grouped together under the rubric of ego psychology, addressed themselves mainly to the developmental and structure-building potential of idealization. Theirs was, in a sense, a benign construction. Narcissism, seen by Freud as an original given of human equipment, was seen by them as a perhaps ambiguous immaturity which needed to be both attenuated and made use of in the course of growth. Idealization, as an expression of narcissism, could optimally be transformed into an investment in ideals which could act as influence and spur for internal development. Melanie Klein and her coworkers in Great Britain, focused as they tended