The term identification immediately implies involvement in almost every area of living: childrearing; personality development; small and large group formation; alterations in physiology. Intrapsychic concepts such as fusion and symbiosis, separation anxiety, developmental losses, and anniversary reactions are involved, as are the interpersonal aspects of parenting and other family processes. Identification partially explains cross-cultural differences and in some cases the distinctions between normal and pathological mourning.

Not only are the grand characters from history1 and literature2 more fully knowable when viewed through the perspective of identification, but so also are real people leading normal lives.

Who among us has not experienced chest pains upon learning of a friend's heart attack, or not felt strange sensations in the breast when a loved one developes breast cancer?