Primitive identifications and psychoanalytical process

Journal title PSICOANALISI
Author/s Antonio Pérez-Sánchez
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/1
Language Italian Pages 14 P. 95-108 File size 83 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSI2025-001008
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The work is based on the assumption that the construction of identity lies in the interaction between projective and introjective identifications. But difficulties in the interaction with the object, in order to avoid the unbearable painful reality, give rise to distortions in the perception of the object, and consequently to inappropriate identifications. From this perspective, the task of the analyst is to point out such misidentifications in the analytic relationship, allowing the patient the opportunity to reconstruct his identity in a manner more aligned with his own psychic reality. A case of an eating disorder is studied, revisiting the concept of the primitive body as a manager of emotions as I previously outlined in another work. Now, the involvement of this primitive body in the construction and organisation of identity is explored.

Keywords: primitive identification, primitive body, eating disorder.

  1. Bion W. (1962). Learning from experience. London: Karnac, 1991 (trad. it. Apprendere dall’esperienza. Roma: Armando, 1979).
  2. Bion W. (1965). Transformations. London: Karnac, 1991 (trad. it. Trasformazioni. Il passaggio dall’apprendimento alla crescita. Roma: Armando, 2001).
  3. Freud S. (1915). Instincts and its destinies. In: S.E., vol. 14, London: Hogart Press, p. 111 (trad. it. Pulsioni e loro destini. In: OSF, vol. 8, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, pp. 11-35).
  4. Freud S. (1917). Mourning and Melancholia. In: S.E., vol. 4 London: Hogart Press, p. 239 (trad. it. Lutto e melanconia. In: OSF, vol. 8, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, pp. 102-122).
  5. Freud S. (1921). Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. In: S.E., vol. 18, London: Hogart Press, p. 69. (trad. it. Psicologia delle masse e analisi dell’Io. In: OSF, vol. 9, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, pp. 257-330).
  6. Freud S. (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. In: S.E., vol. 22, London: Hogart Press, p. 3 (trad. it. Introduzione alla psicoanalisi (nuova serie di lezioni) (1932). In: OSF, vol. 11 Torino. Bollati Boringhieri, pp. 115-284).
  7. Klein M. (1946). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. In: The Writings of Melanie Klein, vol. 3, London: The Hogarth Press, 1987, pp. 1-24.
  8. Klein M. (1955). On Identification. In: The Writings of Melanie Klein. vol. 3. London: The Hogarth Press, 1987, pp. 141-175.
  9. Pérez-Sánchez A. (2022). El nen intern en la sessió analítica (The inner child in the analytic session). Revista Catalana de Psicoanalisi. 39, 2: 9-22.
  10. Pérez-Sánchez A. (2023). Interpretation and primitive body as external reality of the mind. Paper presented in the IPA Congress Cartagena de Indias (Colombia).
  11. Resnik S. (2016). The Logic of Madness. London: Karnac Books.

Antonio Pérez-Sánchez, Identificazioni primitive e processo psicoanalitico in "PSICOANALISI" 1/2025, pp 95-108, DOI: 10.3280/PSI2025-001008