Identity Disorders in Distant Patients

Journal title PSICOANALISI
Author/s Irwin Hoffman
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2016/2
Language Italian Pages 25 P. 61-85 File size 238 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSI2016-002005
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Patients chronically distant and emotionally isolated have often identity disorders. The identity develops as a thematic model of narcissism shaped by the nature of the primary maternal libidinal influences on the child’s sense of self. The identity provides a form of self-definition that relates to the question: Who am I? In the treatment of these patients, resistance to the narcissistic vulnerability (resistance narcissistic) confers an illusory sense of security and leads analyst to divert attention from the central pathological problem: the need of primitive and terrifying, the unconscious fantasies of the dependence and other features. The fact that patients escape the material and therapeutic interactions related to their addictions is one aspect of a tacit agreement with the analyst intended to prevent the examination of their substantial inner stability problems. Among these problems there are the anxieties concerning the intrusion and loss of separateness. Proceed with the analysis, the elements of the identity of these patients are clarified and used to understand and organize the material, to the benefit of both analyst and patient. This allows the patient to articulate more concrete and vital experience of individuality. The presentation of a clinical case serves to illustrate the analysis of a patient by the use of this approach.

Keywords: Narcissism, self-definition, inner stability.

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Irwin Hoffman, Disturbi dell’identità nei pazienti distanti in "PSICOANALISI" 2/2016, pp 61-85, DOI: 10.3280/PSI2016-002005