Careful study is given to a recent memoir by Egon Balas, who survived torture and life-threatening oppression during both the Nazi period in Eastern Europe and the era of Communist rule that followed it.1 His ability to come through his ordeals as well as he was able to is traced in large measure to the strength provided by positive identifications within his psyche, while negative identifications within him are seen as having contributed to the tendency to put himself repeatedly at serious risk. Extrapolation is made to the significance of positive and negative identifications in contributing in general to the success or failure of the psychoanalytic process in those who come for analysis.