In those individuals whose 'ego boundaries are loose and the feeling of ego identity is still in flux, a certain degree of psychic merging' may occur between the self and the object which the author describes as 'magical identification'. When the object in question is hated rather than loved, the identification serves not only as a means of strengthening the ego but also as a vehicle for the discharge of aggression. A feeling of merging with and of temporarily 'being' the object is experienced as a 'magical means of displacing and thereby destroying it'. The author points to the parallel between this process and certain primitive totem rites.