The development of identification in Freudian theory

Once identification achieved its status as a specific psychoanalytic concept it followed a process of reconceptualization that emerged from the different clinical and theoretical contexts in which Freud approached and explained the phenomenon. In tracing the unfolding of the theory of identification throughout Freud's works, we have accounted for the following steps: First, in his correspondence with Fliess, Freud announced topics that would subsequently be theoretically processed. Second, in the first topography, identification was explored in the contexts of hysteria and dreams, and elaborated through reference to two psychic scenes with their respective modes of psychic functioning. Third, in the period of transition to the second topography identification was defined as a substitute for an object relationship and as a preliminary stage of object choice. Interlocked with the concept of narcissism, it produced a reconceptualization of the ego that led to the second topography. Finally, the tripartite model proposed in the second topography manifests the consolidation of the structuring function of identification, since the psychic structure is therein conceived of as resulting from the vicissitudes of object relationships.