The Importance of Identification

We live in an economic, political and social system. Our capitalistic economic system favors the top 1%; we have a serious political divide; we are confronted with potential nuclear war, terrorist attacks, opiates/drugs, global warming, massive personal and national debt, and all the insecurities and so on. Within these elements, personality, character and conscience are influenced. For instance, as newborns, we are born helpless and dependent and rely on our parents for survival. They gratify our physical and psychological needs and meet the requirements for our development. With techniques of praise, loss of love, disapproval, and/or physical punishment, we began to understand parental attitudes and witness parental rigidness, inconsistencies, non-rational contradictions and ambiguities while developing our conscience. By five or six years of age, we have incorporated and learned parental interpreted notions, attitudes, values, ethics, good, bad, morals and prohibitions as our own. We now have the beginnings, or the ground floor for further conscience development. The following “being honest; obeying rules and regulations; resisting temptations to cheat, lie or steal; acting in kind, considerate, altruistic ways; considering the rights and welfare of others; treating people in egalitarian rather than authoritarian ways; making moral judgments in which justice is tempered with mercy” become the components of our conscience. In other words, we have introjected the moral foundations of our parent’s conscience and behavior, and established and instituted our conscience by identifying with them. Realistically, we have likely incorporated more of not “do as I say,” but instead “do as I do.” And, further, that our identification is not only strong but has incorporated the essence or the power of parental authority. Throughout our lives, we identify with others of importance like older siblings, peers, teachers, coaches, professional athletes, role models, heroes and so forth. A brief example of the power of unconscious identifications follow. Remember, unconscious means, not being aware. To Be Continued