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Dr. Greenson on The Struggle Against Identification: Symptoms of four patients resulted from denial of infantile fantasies of incorporation of the parent of the same sex—the 'bad' introject—as defense against an oral-sadistic relationship. Behavior characteristic of the consciously despised introject alternated
with successful denial of the introjection. All patients consciously adored the parent of the opposite sex, hated the parent of the same sex, and had shallow relationships with people. Love and hatred were preambivalent. The patients were constantly hungry for new objects with whom they made transient identifications and who served as screens against the dreaded introjects of infancy. 'This primitive kind of identification (by devouring and being devoured) brings with it a feeling that the patient … is losing his identity… This is intolerable.' These cases are classed with the addictions and perversions 'on a slightly higher level than the depression'.
Dr. Reich on Early Identifications as Archaic Elements in the Superego: The ego ideal contains identifications with the glorified parents that bear a narcissistic and pregenital stamp. The superego develops later. It is composed of identifications that are substitutes for lost loved and hated objects of the Oedipal period. The narcissistic ego ideals if not transformed by the ego cause impaired reality testing, especially in relation to the self. 'Under the impact of the castration complex, early narcissistic identifications are regressively revived and absorbed into an otherwise normal superego.' One patient who illustrates this fact went through a series of regressions, relinquishing his mother as an Oedipal object, trying to identify with her, then attempting to become her infant, and finally identifying with her as his revived infantile narcissistic ego ideal. Thus his otherwise intact capacity for reality testing and self-evaluation was impaired by transient grandiosity. Traces of the glor