Difference between revisions of "Identification"

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This is the process whereby one's ego seeks to emulate another. It is particularly important in overcoming the Oedipus complex: the young child deals with his primitive desires by identifying with his parents, imitating them to such an extent that, ultimately, he introjects the parental authority—and thus develops a super-ego. Identification is quite different from object-choice: "If a boy identifies himself with his father, he wants to be like his father; if he makes him the object of his choice, he wants to have him, to possess him" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.63).
 
 
 
== def ==
 
A term we use often in everyday conversations--we speak of ourselves or of children "identifying" with family members or with celebrities--identification is a complex psychological process over which the [[subject]] never has full control.
 
 
In Lacanian terms, identification can be described as an example of [[captation]]], a process in which an object in the external world (most frequently another person) so "captivates" the subject that it becomes a component in that subject's self-image.
 
 
In Lacan's model of the development of the human psyche, the [[mirror stage]], as the primordial experience of identification in which the infant is captated by the image of his or her own body, lays the groundwork for all subsequent identifications.
 
  
 
== References ==
 
== References ==

Revision as of 13:13, 28 August 2006

References