Identification (psychology)

Identification (psychology)

Identification is a psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property, or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model the other provides. It is by means of a series of identifications that the personality is constituted and specified. The roots of the concept can be found in Freud's writings. The three most prominent concepts of identification as described by Freud are: primary identification, narcissistic (secondary) identification and partial (secondary) identification.

While 'in the psychoanalytic literature there is agreement that the core meaning of identification is simple - to be like or to become like another', it has also been adjudged '"the most perplexing clinical/theoretical area" in psychoanalysis'.