(CZ) Procesy identifikace a jejich význam v utváření osobnosti
(EN) Identification Processes and Their Significance in Personality Formation

One of the essential features of identification is the dimension of imagination. The subject of the identification behaves, or feels, in such a way as if he were the object of the identification, i. e. the person he identifies himself with. Therefore identification is often understood as the alienation of the subject from himself in favour of the identification object: the subject transplants his own existence into the existence of the object. Three basic forms of identification are described: First, the anaclitic identification: the subject in this case identifies himself with the person he loves, but whom he fears to lose. Second, it is the defensive identification: the subject identifies himself with the person he is afraid of: by identifying himself with that person’s norms, values and beliefs, making them regulate his own personality, he forestalls conflicts with that person, in which he would definitely be the loser. And finally, the author distinguishes the identification based on envy: the subject identifies himself with the person he envies, which is ≫as if≪ he participates in all that is accessible to the object and not to himself. By his identifications the individual realizes his self-conception, becoming his own self. Thanks to his identification with the persons of his environment he actualizes his talents, dispositions, motives, etc. and thus makes them amenable to the cultivation process. Thanks to his identifications, however, the individual also ≫as if≪ experiences, by substitution, through the person he identifies himself with, a number of desirable things which are inaccessible to himself. Thereby he lessens his strain resulting from the accumulation of needs and desires, and compensates for his failures, his limitations. And finally, within the framework of the identification process, he arrives at acquiring social habits and roles. A sufficient quantity of imitation and identification opportunities is an essential condition for successful socialization. But it is necessary to face the danger that the influence of models and identification objects will damp down and suppress the aspirations of self-realization.