To avoid misunderstanding, we should stress that the process of disidentfication does not mean repressing, condemning, becoming passive, giving up or becoming insensitive to whatever we are disidentifying from.

This is even more evident if we fully grasp the implications of Assagioli’s choice to place catharsis before disidentification in the list of methods and techniques for the development of self-mastery (see catharsis, critical analysis, disidentification, development of the will). Indeed, catharsis is the very opposite of insensitivity, apathy, or self-blame. Catharsis means (re)appropriating and recovering personal experiences, letting them flow, “discharging” the energy they hold, so as to liberate the “I” from it. It is one of the most effective and perhaps the safest way to facilitate authentic disidentification.

In fact, “before disidentifying ourselves it is necessary to be able to identify ourselves with our various aspects and regain possession of the energy locked in the complexes. Otherwise there are risks of deeper splitting, polarisation and of escaping from that with which we cannot identify ourselves with, into false disidentification” (Rosselli, 2000).

Authentic disidentification is, therefore, a state of watchfulness, of awareness:

“being disidentified does not mean being in an ethereal sphere and seeing things from above, but simply not being overwhelmed by what happens: keeping our head above the high tide of emotions.” (Assagioli cit. in B. Caldironi, 2004, p. 74)

Assagioli adds that “even in the case of disidentification one must remember that nothing should be taken in an absolute sense: the absolute exists only in the non-manifest; in the life of the world there are no absolutes.” So disidentification does not mean renouncing the experience of things but rather the attachment to them; it means acquiring a certain margin of inner freedom with respect to psychological contents, realising a third dimension and, with it, the possibility of stepping in and out of experiences. It is a change of internal attitude.

“Between the two opposite threats, either asphyxiating in the ascetic void or drowning in the mundane plane – inanition and indigestion – detachment represents balance” (Assagioli, 2022).

So disidentification is not to be understood as an antithesis to identification, but as a true synthesis::

Disidentification

(Attachment) Identification (Aversion)

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