Concept
Adhesive identification
A primitive form of identification described by Esther Bick and Donald Meltzer, first in print in Meltzer's 1975 writings on autism. When an infant has not taken in a containing object that gives it a sense of a skin holding it together, it cannot project into an object or take one in, and instead holds itself together by sticking to the surface of the object. The result is mimicry of the object's outward features, its voice, gestures or manner, rather than an identification with its inner qualities. It belongs to a two-dimensional world without inner spaces, and is seen in autistic and post-autistic states and in shallow, imitative personalities.
Development
1975
Donald Meltzer introduced by
The term was Esther Bick's, but it first appeared in print in Meltzer's 1975 paper and in Explorations in Autism, where he set it out as a mode of identification distinct from projective identification.
Undated
Esther Bick developed by
Bick coined the term from her observations of infants who cling to surfaces when no containing object holds them together. Her 1986 paper took the idea further.
Relations
- 1975 introduced by Donald Meltzer
The term was Esther Bick's, but it first appeared in print in Meltzer's 1975 paper and in Explorations in Autism, where he set it out as a mode of identification distinct from projective identification.
- developed by Esther Bick
Bick coined the term from her observations of infants who cling to surfaces when no containing object holds them together. Her 1986 paper took the idea further.
- diverges from Projective identification
Projective identification needs an object with an inside to project into. Adhesive identification belongs to a two-dimensional world where there is no inner space, so the self sticks to the object's surface and imitates it instead of entering it.
- derives from Dimensionality of mental functioning
In Meltzer's scheme, adhesive identification is the typical way of relating in two-dimensional mental functioning, where objects are felt as surfaces only.
Works
- 1975
Explorations in Autism: A Psycho-Analytical Study
The report of a research group of child psychotherapists, led by Meltzer with John Bremner, Shirley Hoxter, Doreen Weddell and Isca Wittenberg, on the intensive analysis of four autistic children, Timmy, John, Barry and Piffie. Meltzer's theoretical chapters describe autism proper as a mindless state brought about by dismantling, a passive suspension of attention that lets the self come apart along the lines of the senses. Post-autistic states are marked by two-dimensional, surface-to-surface relating and by adhesive identification, Esther Bick's term, which first appeared in print in Meltzer's writings of this year. The cases also reveal a disturbed geography of the life-space, which the publisher calls the geography of the internal mother and which later shaped Meltzer's theory of the claustrum. A chapter on dimensionality in mental functioning ranks one-, two-, three- and four-dimensional ways of relating to objects, space and time; the publisher presents it as the first theory of dimensionality in psychoanalysis.
See also
Linked from
People
References
- Explorations in Autism: A Psycho-Analytical Study1975 Evidence for a relation