Internalization occupies a pivotal position across the depth-psychological corpus, functioning simultaneously as a developmental mechanism, a therapeutic goal, and — for certain theorists — an epistemological problem. The classical psychoanalytic tradition, represented here by Hartmann, Loewenstein, Loewald, Schafer, and Meissner, defines internalization variously as the transformation of external regulations into internal ones, the conversion of external relations into internal structure, and the 'taking in' of absent others. Schore grounds this lineage neurobiologically, arguing that the caregiver's regulatory function is permanently inscribed in the child's right hemisphere and that psychotherapy seeks to recreate this ontogenetic process through a series of attachments and separations. Klein anchors the concept even earlier, treating the internalization of the good object as the very basis of postnatal development. Object-relations clinicians such as Flores extend the discussion into treatment of addiction, showing how transmuting internalization builds psychic structure where early self-object failure left deficits. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development enters via Schore, adding a sociocognitive dimension. Against these structuralist positions, Schwartz (IFS) mounts a pointed critique: the 'myth of environmental dependency' overstates the role of internalization and underestimates the innate Self. Hillman, characteristically oblique, warns that 'internalizing can become just as literal as acting out,' insisting that psychic movement inward must remain imaginal rather than mechanical. Cairns traces cross-cultural debates about whether shame cultures achieve genuine internalization of norms or merely contingent compliance. The term thus marks a fault line between constructivist, relational, neurobiological, and archetypal models of psychic formation.
In the library
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internalization as a transformation of external regulations into internal ones… of external relations into internal ones… a 'taking in' of external others that enables the individual to refer to and experience others without their being physically present
Schore surveys the canonical psychoanalytic definitions of internalization and introduces Vygotsky's developmental principle that all higher psychological functions move from interpersonal to intrapersonal through a zone of proximal development.
Schore, Allan N., Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, 1994thesis
from the beginning of postnatal life the internalization of the object is the basis of development… in an ego lacking in strength and subjected to violent splitting processes the internalization of the good object differs in nature and strength
Klein asserts that internalization of the good object is the foundational developmental process, and that failures or distortions in this process distinguish paranoid-schizoid from manic-depressive pathology.
Klein, Melanie, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963, 1957thesis
the child permanently internalizes the caregiver's regulatory function… the treatment of early right hemispheric attachment pathology involves the socioaffective experience-dependent development in the patient of an internalized image of the therapist
Schore argues that psychotherapy recreates ontogenetic internalization by fostering development of an internalized therapist image that counteracts early toxic maternal imprinting.
Schore, Allan N., Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, 1994thesis
Internalization produces greater flexibility in handling both internal and interactive states and is the result of working through conflicts or building new psychic structure to handle previously disruptive anxiety.
Flores, citing Rutan and Stone, presents internalization as the mechanism by which group therapy builds durable psychic structure, enabling patients to integrate affect and diminish inner conflict.
Flores, Philip J, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997thesis
we need to internalize or be taught morality, empathy, and respect, and our most valuable qualities don't exist unless they are nurtured in external relationships — implying that we, as therapists, must try to give clients what they lack, while they must internalize us.
Schwartz identifies and critiques the attachment-theory premise that clients must internalize the therapist, arguing this myth of environmental dependency underestimates the innate Self and fosters unnecessary therapeutic dependence.
Schwartz, Richard C, Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1995thesis
The child internalizes the calming, soothing qualities of the self-object and transmuting internalization is achieved.
Drawing on Kohutian self-psychology, Flores explains how the child's internalization of an idealized self-object's regulatory qualities constitutes transmuting internalization, the structural basis for healthy narcissistic development.
Flores, Philip J, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997thesis
internalization is a subjective absorption by nonphysical means of both the real and imagined presence of another person over a long period of time. How this happens is a mystery.
Sedgwick characterizes Jungian therapeutic internalization as an irreducibly mysterious, quasi-mystical process of absorbing the therapist's real and imagined presence, distinct from any schematic blank-slate model.
Sedgwick, David, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001thesis
Bowlby avoided the term of internalization because he believed the way psychoanalysis defined the process implied something of a mechanical nature, which consisted of making internal what had been external.
Flores explains Bowlby's resistance to the classical internalization concept, showing how the internal working model constitutes a relational alternative more compatible with intersubjectivity theory.
Flores, Philip J., Addiction as an Attachment Disorder, 2004thesis
Internalizing can become just as literal as acting, or whatever else one likes to call it.
Hillman warns that internalization, when understood as simply moving the anima from outer person to inner person, replicates the very literalism it claims to transcend, thereby betraying the imaginal nature of psychic life.
Hillman, James, Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion, 1985thesis
The love impulse itself has within it the cultural seeds of internalization and symbolization; these are not sublimations imposed from above by will, reason, or social ethics.
Hillman argues that internalization is an organic, instinctual movement immanent within eros itself, not an external imposition, linking it to the self-governing regulation of instinct through conscience, ritual, and fantasy.
Hillman, James, Insearch: Psychology and Religion, 1967supporting
Some of these therapies view parts as the outcome of trauma — a 'splintered mind' or the product of 'internalization' in which the voice, image, and energy of someone else are enacted internally. Our position is that we are born with some parts manifesting while others lie dormant.
Schwartz distinguishes the IFS model from trauma-based and internalization-based accounts of psychic multiplicity, insisting that parts are innate rather than introjected from relational experience.
Schwartz, Richard C, Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1995supporting
Among American Indians it is possible to find the whole gamut of degrees of internalization, from the high internalization among the Ojibway, who may commit suicide from the shame engendered by an unwitnessed event
Cairns surveys cross-cultural anthropological evidence for variable degrees of shame internalization, showing that the shame-culture/guilt-culture dichotomy masks a continuum of internalized normative standards.
Douglas L. Cairns, Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature, 1993supporting
truly internal sanctions, can exist only in societies in which the child is socialized by parents who stress the kind of imperatives, the absolute Good and Evil, which are hypostatized in the figure of a fatherly Deity.
Cairns traces the Protestant-ethic roots of the guilt-culture thesis, exposing how the debate over internalized moral sanctions is entangled with theological and ideological premises.
Douglas L. Cairns, Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature, 1993supporting
there is nothing here that rules out internalization, and much, even in the brevity of Mead's descriptions, that positively suggests it.
Cairns argues against cultural-relativist dismissals of internalization, contending that socialization processes in ostensibly shame-oriented cultures nonetheless produce genuine internalized standards.
Douglas L. Cairns, Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature, 1993supporting
what psychotherapy does provide overall can be conceptualized as a repair to the area of what Jung called the parental imago, meaning the internalized or inner parent
Sedgwick frames Jungian psychotherapy as operating primarily on the internalized parental imago, implicitly connecting the clinical concept of internalization to Jung's structural notion of the imago.
Sedgwick, David, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001supporting
In an index entry, Flores signals that the internalization of twelve-step principles constitutes a discrete clinical topic in the treatment of addiction, though the entry itself does not elaborate the argument.
Flores, Philip J, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997aside
A man attempts to become more feminine, feeling and 'eros-connected' with the aim of integrating the anima… he is actually becoming more literal than imaginal
Hillman critiques literalistic models of anima integration — including inward ones — arguing that the hermaphroditic ideal requires a double consciousness rather than any directional movement, inward or outward.
Hillman, James, Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion, 1985aside