The technique of partial identification: waking up to the world

A capacity to make partial identification with others is a skill that brings group members out of the loneliness of narcissism and into the lively world of immediacy and progressive emotional communication. Partial identification, which requires empathy and intuition, involves both knowing what another is feeling and also what we feel toward that other. Developing partial identification will meet with different resistances in men and women. Using clinical examples, the author defines and demonstrates the concept of partial identification and discusses how the pathway to achieving the technique can differ along gender lines.