ABSTRACT
The process of internalization is brie¯y revisited here in order to emphasize its active, laborious quality. The features of intentionality, creativity and imagination ± however minimal or inchoate ± are frequently marginalized in the ongoing exploration of this topic. As `internalization' includes aspects of processes such as identi®cation and introjection, the term is used here to refer to the essential activity of assimilating and metabolizing experience for the sake of self-formation and psychic survival.
