ABSTRACT
Freud says that identification is ‘the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person.’29 The first identificatory fantasies, as we have seen are oral; but more sophisticated fantasies of identification occur throughout childhood. And as the child gains a more independent sense of herself, there opens up the possibility of relating to her parents in two different ways. As she comes to see herself as one person in the world among others, she can relate to a parent either as someone else in the world, whom she loves or hates or desires, or she can relate to the parent as someone as though she were that person. In the former case, Freud says, the child is choosing the parent as an object; the parent is whom she would like to have. In the latter case, the child is identifying with the parent; the parent is whom she would like to be. And this is not just a day-dream: identification can have real efficacy. As Freud tells us, ‘identification endeavors to mould a person’s own ego after the fashion of the one that has been taken as a model.’30
