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The double refers to a [[representation ]] of the ego that can assume various forms (shadow, [[reflection]], portrait, double, twin) that is found in [[primitive ]] [[animism ]] as a [[narcissistic ]] extension and [[guarantee ]] of immortality, but which, with the [[withdrawal ]] of [[narcissism]], becomes a foreshadowing of [[death]], a source of criticism and [[persecution]].

The [[figure ]] of the double dates back to primitive civilizations, as shown in legend, but it is also found throughout [[literature]]. It was Otto Rank who in his essay on the double (1914) was the first to develop this [[idea ]] in [[psychoanalysis]], and Sigmund [[Freud ]] [[quotes ]] him at length in "The [[Uncanny]]" (1919). However, the idea of the doubling of [[consciousness ]] is [[present ]] in his first [[texts ]] on [[hysteria ]] (1893, 1895), and the [[unconscious ]] itself is introduced by Freud as a second consciousness capable of producing [[dreams]], [[parapraxes]], and so on. The theme of the double is taken up by Freud and integrated in his [[concept ]] of the uncanny. "The 'uncanny' is that [[form ]] of [[terror ]] that leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar" (1919), but has become terrifying because it corresponds to something [[repressed ]] that has returned. "The double," Freud wrote citing Heinrich Heine, "has become an [[image ]] of terror, just as, after the collapse of their [[religion]], the gods turned into demons." (1910).

Rank's study of the double has two aspects: anthropological and psychopathological, the latter [[being ]] approached through literature and the [[personality ]] of authors. For [[anthropology]], the double is omnipresent as a representation of the soul and therefore a [[guarantor ]] of survival. It also helps us [[understand ]] the [[nature ]] of sacrifice, such as the cannibalistic [[incorporation ]] of the son by the [[father ]] (Chronos) because the son has drawn to himself the father's image or shadow. The double is similarly the origin of certain taboos, and Rank [[notes ]] the evolution between the narcissistic [[claim ]] of immortality and the acceptance of the genetic continuity of [[parents ]] through their [[children]], which is at the origin of [[totemism]]. "It is no longer the double itself (the shadow) that continues to live but the spirit of a [[dead ]] elder who is reborn in the embryo" (Rank, 1914).

In literature (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allen Poe, Guy de Maupassant, Alfred de Musset, Fyodor Dostoevsky), Rank points out the description of a [[paranoid ]] [[state ]] revolving around the persecution of the ego by its double and compares these [[imaginary ]] creations to their authors' [[symptoms]], through which the theme of the double reveals a psychopathological [[dimension ]] (epilepsy, [[splitting ]] of the personality). Similarly, Freud noted that an older form of narcissism that has been overcome can continue to have an effect by changing into a "[[moral ]] [[conscience]]" susceptible of being [[split ]] off from the ego, as seen, for example, in [[delusions ]] of being watched.

The double is also found, although on a different plane, in [[real ]] or imagined twins and, more generally, in twin brothers. The [[paradox ]] of [[identity ]] versus [[alterity ]] arises here together with—in the [[case ]] of the doubles of [[myth ]] who are not brothers ([[Achilles ]] and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades)—the narcissistic foundations of [[friendship]]. This can be contrasted with the [[tragic ]] destiny of [[Narcissus]], who drowned while [[looking ]] at his own reflection. The theme of the double appears, therefore, to be susceptible to very broad [[interpretation]], similar to the [[primal ]] narcissism from which it originated.

# [[Freud, Sigmund ]] (1919h). The Uncanny. SE, 17: 217-256.