The identification process (see Identification I) has very important and positive value that must be recognised and emphasised: identification is an integrating and synthetic force which, through the creation of partial and limited unifying centres, enables us organise and develop certain elements, differentiating from psychic chaos.

Identifications are, in fact, nuclei around which coherent psychological material is constellated. These nuclei constitute the basis of our sense of identity and are the focus of the first stage of psychosynthesis, where we seek to consolidate the personality, by making an inventory of its elements.

This mean that the process of identification should in no way be considered pathological in itself. The process of identification becomes pathological only if it stops at a particular stage, impeding advancement towards successive disidentification and, consequently, the entire process of development constantly followed by the individual.

Such rigid, restrictive and partial identifications hinder self-realisation, do not allow us to experience the deeper meaning of self-identification, to know who we really are and to utilise all our parts and aspects: these partial identifications can, in fact, prevent the experience, or at least the intuition, of inner totality. Moreover, by sclerotising our being, these partial identifications may, over time, lead to an inevitable experience of “loss” and depression. The athlete who becomes old and weak, the actress who loses her beauty, the student who, having finished their studies, needs to take on adult responsibilities, the mother whose grown-up children finally leave the nest, etc. (Alberti, 2007, p. 53).

These problems can only be solved by making our identifications more and more conscious, by maturing the awareness that they are all limited and temporary and, above all, by accepting the inevitable “partial psychological deaths” that characterise the unfolding of existence. This is possible by learning to disidentify ourselves from these partial contents and by realising new, wider and more complete identifications through a constant process of death and rebirth.

For more:

• Know, Love, Transform yourself (Vol. I) Psychosynthesis books (pp. 238-239) – Buy now
• Know, Love, Transform yourself (Vol. II) – Buy now
• The Way of Psychosynthesis, Synthesis Insights (pp. 233-242) – Buy now