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Jacobson suggests that the study of psychotic identifications will be furthered by a closer enquiry into the differences between normal ego and superego identifications and the corresponding mechanisms in psychosis. Ego identifications differ from early infantile identification mechanisms in that the former are realistic in so far as they result in changes within the ego, while the latter are essentially magical, based on phantasies, or the temporary belief of being one with or becoming the object, regardless of reality. In psychotic states normal object relationships disintegrate and are replaced by such pre-oedipal magic identification mechanisms. Normally these magic identifications find some expression in the ego-ideal and the superego. The core of the ego-ideal consists of idealized parental images blended with archaic, aggrandized images of the self. There is normally an awareness of this unrealistic element in the superego and this is reflected in the recognition of the discrepancies which exist between ego and superego standards. An account of a manic-depressive and a schizophrenic patient is given to illustrate that in manic depressives the magic identifications aim at and succeed in maintaining a dependence of the self on a powerful superior love object. In the schizophrenic the regressive processes go much further. The ego and superego systems deteriorate to a dangerous extent, with a dissolution of the superego and its decomposition into threatening parental figures. The need of the manic-depressive to cling on to the object at any price is shown in the tendency of the patient to treat himself as if he were the love object. The schizophrenic behaves as if he were or believes himself to be the object because of his inclination to destroy and replace the object by the self or let the self be annihilated and replaced by the object.