ABSTRACT
The earliest way in which an emotional tie with another person is expressed is identification. The distinction between identification with the father and choice of the father as an object is easily stated. It is the difference between to be and to have. Identification can occur as part of the structure of a neurotic symptom. This chapter discusses the author's findings about identification. It is the original form of emotional tie with an object; it may be a substitute for an object tie by way of regression; and it may arise through perception of a quality shared with some other person who is not an object of the sexual instinct. Psycho-analytic research has been able to show the part played by identification in some cases which are not immediately comprehensible. Identification with an object that it renounced or lost, as a substitute for it-in other words, introjection of this object into the ego-is nothing new.
