Dis-Identity: New Forms of Identity and Psychopathology—Socioanthropological Changes and Self-Development

Abstract

The passage from modernity to postmodernity deeply upset the group dimension, and, consequently, personal identity itself. Transformations involving the entire planet, socioanthropological changes our society had to cope with, are producing a change in the dynamics of identity formation and the appearance of new psychopathological figures. The loss of cohesion of the sense of belonging and the weak internalization process of the elements that form the individual identity (cultural, linguistic, religious traditions, etc.) draw an essentially uncertain and temporary existence. Drawing on some themes of subjectual group analysis theory of personality, the article proposes the concept of dis-identity as key to read ongoing psychic changes.

KEYWORDS:

• Dis-identity
• identity
• postmodernity
• psychopathology

Notes

¹These changes affected many fields of existence: from city planning to employment, to economy, up to relationship modalities.

²The sense of integration vs identity diffusion is one of the indicators which allow distinguishing neurotic, borderline and psychotic organizations (Kernberg, 1975; McWilliams, 1994). The sense of identity integration can be obtained from the sensation of temporal and affective continuity the patient has of himself, of the significant other and of his experience in the world (the sense of identity integration enables the patient to give representations of himself, his fellows, and his faceted, three-dimensional, differentiated experiences with other people, including both positive and negative aspects). The sense of identity dispersion can be obtained, instead, from the sensation of permanent difficulty to temporally and affectively integrate images, experiences and representation of oneself and the other people in complex and not contradictory frameworks. It is therefore characterised by the presence of split representations of oneself and the others. The sense of identity dispersion is typical of borderline organizations.

³Lyotard's post-modern reflection, however, does not intend to be a nostalgic complaint for lost unity and totality; he actually claimed that the decline of “major narrations” in favour of the multiplicity of meanings could lead to a increase in value of diversity and a respect for differences.

⁴We would more technically say “crossed,” with reference to Foulkes's works (1948), founder of the Anglo-Saxon group analysis model.

⁵In Napolitani's opinion (1987), the individuals’ identity is built according to a character of “permanence,” a stability deriving from their being identical to the cultural matrices they form themselves in (the Idem), as well as to a character of invention, creativity, which builds new meaning connections among the data of the world (the Autòs). Cfr. also Idem/Ipset (Ricouer 1990).

⁶For further reference see Ferraro and Lo Verso (2007, 2008), Ferraro (2011), and Ferraro, Giannone, and Lo Verso (2012).

⁷Comparing grief and melancholy, Freud (1915) explained the first as the effect of the aware perception of an external world which got poorer of some of its important aspects, and the second as the feeling to have damaged, or irremediably lost, a part of one's Self. In this last case, however, even considering a more interior kind of loss, He could not fully understand its sense, maybe because up to a certain point (until his writings of 1921 and 1922) he had not considered the role of the Other for one's Self. He will later come back on the question with the above-mentioned writings, and from then onwards it will be clear that, in order for the subject to experiment melancholic dynamics, the instances of Self and Super Ego must be present and well differentiated. In this perspective, identifications (which for Freud concern Super Ego and the Ideal of one's Self) are necessary to melancholic dynamics. Our hypothesis, instead, talks about a lack of identifications (that is a lack of Idem) and sends back to a more archaic dimension, in a sense closer to what Winnicott has spoken of in Fear of Breakdown (Ferraro 2011; Ferraro and Lo Verso 2007).

⁸The family level, too, is consequently affected by these changes.

⁹Even though it naturally intertwines with all personological and historical aspects they bring about.

¹⁰That is that “moral commandment” which orientated social bonds inside Civilizations (Freud 1929).