ABSTRACT
The concept of identity in psychoanalysis has been neglected, and remains unintegrated into the main body of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. Parent loss and other traumatic overstimulating, abusive experiences in childhood, whether sexual or physical, are risk factors leading to vertical splitting in the ego that in turn gives rise to clinically observable splits in identity. In the psychoanalytic literature, the term identity was first used by Tausk in referring to the newborn’s primary or innate narcissism associated with finding pleasure in its own body. Kernberg investigated the role of the superego in identity formation and its deterioration under group pressures as they are applied to young adult psychoanalytic candidates and graduates alike. Sexual and gender identity are not internally determined alone, since there are powerful stimuli in the infant’s and child’s environment that strongly influence the outcome of gender identity. People to whom the term identity diffusions applies have not settled on either vocational or ideological goals.
