You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Study of patients in psychoanalysis and observations of one infant suggest that identifications are bridging functions between social roles and internal psychological processes. How do the patterned processes of the external human environment become internalized to form identifications? The basic groundwork or template of personality is developed early by transactional identifications, before differentiation of personality into special psychological structures or subsystems. The same early transactional processes leading to identification contribute basic patterns to each of the psychological systems, to be differentiated later. Once they are isolated, further accretions of content depend upon the maturation of mechanisms of perception and motor control in relationships with significant persons. Identifications, and ultimately identity, are resultants of instinctual drives and experiences with reality, both of which must be taken into consideration. The resulting defenses and symptoms are synthesized by the integrating and organizing forces of the self.
AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT