ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a form of identification demonstrated by a specific group of patients. This form of internalization will be explored to further refine the concept of identification and contribute to their thinking about the interplay of maternal pressures and the psychological processes of the infant. The clinical focus will be on one of this group of patients who demonstrate a form of identification with their mother and in particular with the conflicted aspects of the mother. A clinical discussion of the process of internalization of the conflicted psychological state of the mother will be used as a vehicle to formulate a developmental hypothesis regarding this identification, and to offer some thoughts about this specific use of early identification as a defensive response to excessive maternal projective identification. Since the therapist was reasonably certain that he was not being unresponsive to the patient, the material could be understood as a set of feelings portraying early experiences of maternal impingement.
