Identification occupies a pivotal and contested position across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a developmental mechanism, a defensive operation, a relational process, and a spiritual mode of knowing. Freud inaugurates the clinical discussion by anchoring identification to Oedipal resolution: the child's renunciation of libidinal aims toward a parent is metabolized through identificatory incorporation, consolidating gender character and superego structure. Jung extends and complicates this foundation by distinguishing identification from the more primitive state of identity, treating the former as a secondary, regressive phenomenon that arises when developmental obstacles dam up libido and the ego merges with its best-developed function or with parental figures—thereby obscuring individuation. Neumann sharpens the ethical stakes, showing how ego identification with the persona and collective values generates inflation and a dangerously falsified conscience. Klein introduces the transformative concept of projective identification, reframing it as simultaneously a primitive defence, an interpersonal coercion, and a vehicle of unconscious communication—a reading elaborated by Ogden, Yalom, Flores, and Sedgwick within object-relations and group-psychotherapeutic frameworks. Kurtz and the ACA tradition recover a positive, spiritual register of identification: the empathic recognition of oneself in another's story, articulated through the medieval concept of imitatio. Welwood, working at the psychology-Buddhism interface, diagnoses prereflective identification as the constitutive problem of ordinary consciousness. The term thus traverses the corpus as both pathology and path, deficit and doorway.
Identification then leads to the formation of a secondary character, the individual identifying with his best developed function to such an extent that he alienates himself very largely or even entirely from his original character
Jung argues that functional identification displaces the true individuality into the unconscious, making it a necessary but ultimately transitory stage on the path to individuation.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
the outcome of the Oedipus attitude in a little girl may be an intensification of her identification with her mother... a result which will fix the child's feminine character
Freud establishes identification as the primary psychic mechanism by which Oedipal renunciation is converted into lasting character structure and gender formation.
, The Ego and the Id, 1923thesis
the ego identifies itself with the ethical values. This identification takes place by means of an identification of the ego with the persona... the ego falls a victim to a very dangerous inflation
Neumann demonstrates that the ego's identification with collective ethical values via the persona produces a false conscience and a pathological inflation that severs contact with the shadow.
, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, 1949thesis
projective processes connected with splitting, for which she introduces the term 'projective identification', a concept discussed below
Klein's introduction of projective identification as a theoretical concept marks a decisive expansion of the term's scope, linking it to the schizoid-paranoid position's fundamental splitting mechanisms.
, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963, 1957thesis
What makes our ordinary state of consciousness problematic, according to both psychological and spiritual traditions, is unconscious identification... our self-structure is under the sway of a more primitive capacity—identification
Welwood, integrating Buddhist and developmental psychology, identifies prereflective identification as the structural ground of ordinary suffering, preceding the capacity for self-reflection.
, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000thesis
This 'following' is identification, and like love, it involves a kind of fusion of the knower with the known. The medieval monks termed this identification imitatio, presenting it as a two-part process
Kurtz recovers the spiritual-monastic meaning of identification as imitatio, a two-stage process of external imitation followed by internal transformation of attitude, distinguishing it sharply from mere mimicry.
, The Spirituality of Imperfection Storytelling and the, 1994thesis
projective identification... consists of projecting some of one's own (but disavowed) internal attributes into another, toward whom one subsequently feels an uncanny attraction-repulsion
Yalom elaborates projective identification within group-psychotherapeutic theory as simultaneously a primitive intrapsychic defence and an interpersonal coercion that materially alters the behaviour of its recipient.
, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Fifth Edition, 2008supporting
Projective identification as a theoretical perspective is a complicated issue with a sometimes unclear definition and history. It has been viewed as a diagnostic indicator, a defensive operation, and a communication device
Sedgwick surveys the contested clinical uses of projective identification within Jungian therapeutic practice, noting its triple function as diagnostic, defensive, and communicative mechanism.
, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001supporting
it appeared to me that he was aware of the process of identification by projection
Klein, rereading Freud's group psychology, retroactively grounds projective identification in Freud's own implicit recognition of projection's role in identificatory processes.
, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963, 1957supporting
Self-identification with The Laundry List (Problem) is the glue that holds together our fellowship and its membership
The ACA tradition deploys identification as the foundational act of communal recognition through which shared traumatic experience is named, creating the solidarity necessary for recovery.
, ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES, 2012supporting
there is some emotional pressure exerted on the recipient to experience and take on the projection. Projectors need to rid themselves of an emotion or part of themselves because it is intolerable for them to own or contain it
Flores, drawing on Ogden's three-phase model, explicates the coercive interpersonal mechanism by which projective identification transfers intolerable self-aspects into the group recipient.
, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997supporting
To this first component of the notion of identity corresponds the notion of identification, understood in the sense of the reidentification of the same, which makes cognition recognition
Ricoeur situates identification within his analysis of sameness, linking it specifically to the epistemological act of reidentifying a thing across time—a conceptual register distinct from but relevant to psychodynamic usage.
, Oneself as Another, 1992supporting
what is the role in mourning of identification with the person lost?
Bowlby frames identification with the lost object as one of the central unresolved controversies in the psychoanalytic theory of mourning, placing it alongside anxiety and anger as a key motivational question.
, Loss: Sadness and Depression (Attachment and Loss, Volume III), 1980supporting
identification with: 20-23, 61-62, 66-69, 94, 98-99, 121, 148-149, 174, 181-182
Woodman's index entries signal that mother-identification constitutes a pervasive structural theme in her analysis of feminine psychology and addiction to perfection.
, Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride: A Psychological Study, 1982supporting
Projective identification, 145, 224-225, 235, 438, 451, 525-529 as communication, 526-527; as compared with projection, 525; complementary, 527-528; concordant, 528
This index entry maps the extensive treatment of projective identification throughout Flores's clinical text, distinguishing its communicative, complementary, and concordant modalities.
, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997aside