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PROTECTIVE‐IDENTIFICATION: A NARCISSISTIC DEFENCE AGAINST PRIMARY OBJECT LOSS
Author(s) -
Leibowitz Michael S.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0118.1997.tb00319.x
Subject(s) - id, ego and super ego , psychology , identification (biology) , object (grammar) , projective identification , autonomy , object relations theory , abandonment (legal) , social psychology , psychoanalytic theory , psychoanalysis , artificial intelligence , computer science , law , botany , political science , biology
In this paper, the writer introduces the theoretical concept of Protective‐Identification as a defence mechanism. As an ego adaptive strategy, Protective‐Identification allows the ego to remain defensively attached to internal objects. As a form of protection against trauma or feared loss or abandonment by the object, the infantile ego resorts to oral assimilation defences in order to preserve harmonious internal ego‐object relations and ego‐object cathexes. It is argued here that Protective‐Identification as a defence operates at the regressed level of primary narcissistic identification with the object at the cost of integrated ego autonomy.