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The treatment of 'identification' in the American literature is conveniently divided into three eras: (1) The Pioneers (1915–1945). (2) The Synthesizers (1945–1975). (3) Current Commentators (1975–1985). For the Pioneers, concepts and terminology were diffuse, reflecting the diversity of clinical material, methodology and theories accompanying the rapid expansion in analytic experience over a half century. The achievement of an integrated survey by Otto Fenichel in 1945 marked the transition from a fragmentary to a synthesizing approach to identification and its inherent aspects of incorporation and ejection, introjection and projection, internalization and externalization.
The Synthesizers brought to the fore developmental and adaptive viewpoints which traced along longitudinal lines the processes of maturation from the earliest mother—child unit to later phases of life. The differentiation of the self (one's own person) from systemic functioning within the Freudian ego (Hartmann) and a corresponding importance accorded to reciprocal self-object relationships, proved eventful for the conceptualization of identification. A broadening of traditional analytic frameworks with respect to both normal and abnormal forms of behaviour was a correlated achievement in placing identificatory processes between the inner and outer worlds.