Notes on a case of alienating identification

Abstract

While exploring the transgenerational transmission of intrapsychic contents and processes, Faimberg coined the term alienating identification to convey the impact of the parents' intrusion into the child's psyche, and of the expulsion into it of rejected parts of themselves. In addition, Torok and Abraham use the term phantom to describe aspects of the presence of a split-off, traumatized part of the self of a person, usually related with unresolved mourning, in another person's mind. The existence of such processes constitutes a major problem for the subject's narcissism, that is, the way he invests himself, and for his relation to experience and reality. It also may be used as an omnipotent means of avoiding psychic pain, by identifying with his object's omnipotent way of rejecting painful reality. This paper will explore, with the use of clinical material, the defensive use of such phenomena on the part of the subject, as well as their impact on the analyst's mind, that is, on his countertransference, when he is working with carriers of alienating identifications and phantoms. Stress is put on the importance for the analyst of containing the uncanny experiences of being cut off from the patient's mind and of being controlled by something he ignores.

Keywords:

• alienating identifications
• phantom
• trauma
• unresolved mourning
• containing
• countertransference