Scientific, historical, sociopsychological, professional, and political factors have raised the question of identify within psychoanalysis. This subject is traced back by Thomä to certain essential aspects of the revolutionary scientific paradigm (in Kuhn's sense) that Freud created: the introduction of the subject as participant observer and the "personal equation," elaborated as allegiance to psychoanalytic schools. The identity theory of E. H. Erikson and its conceptual dimensions explain why disciplinary problems have been linked with the concept of identity in psychoanalysis. By reference to current controversies surrounding theories of narcissism and of the self, the author outlines how "group identities" have come into being. Because of their emotional rootedness, these complicate rational clarification and a psychoanalytic "normal science."