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M S Porder

Publications and source records attributed to M S Porder.

2 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1987

Projective identification: an alternative hypothesis.

The concept of projective identification as a primitive defense mechanism is reassessed. An alternative hypothesis is offered: that projective identification can best be understood as a compromise formation which includes as its major component an "identification with the aggressor" or a "turning of passive into active." This reversal is demonstrated within a two-tiered transference/countertransference of the analyst as powerful parent and the patient as the helpless child. On the deeper level the patient enacts the role of dominant parent and the analyst experiences the feelings which the patient had felt as a child.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Identification in the neuroses.

Identification is a term with a complex history in the evolution of psychoanalytic thought. It is used in explanations of symptom formation and the development of psychic structure. The authors report the results of a study of identifications as they appear in clinical material from the analyses of neurotic patients. Those identifications which come to the attention of analyst and analysand in the course of analysis are seen to be expressions of underlying fantasies of becoming, or becoming like another person. What is most significant and useful to determine is the unconscious motive or motives for these identificatory fantasies. As these fantasies are compromise formations, the analytic method can detect motives from all their component elements, that is to say various instinctual gratifications, defenses against anxiety, depressive affect or both, and superego contributions, whose motives may be said to be punishment, expiation or undoing. Clinical material is presented which demonstrates typical forms of identification, and the interweaving of these motives is shown. Certain long-standing ideas about distinguishing identifications of different types from one another are questioned, and the common underlying structure of all identifications is stressed instead.

Adult↗