Identity through a Psychoanalytic Looking Glass

This paper examines how "identity" can be conceptualized and how the experience of "oneself" is influenced by the interplay of forces inside the mind and the body. We address three psychoanalytic approaches: Freud's topological views on the mental apparatus; Lacan's theory on the mirror stage, his optical model of the ideals of the subject, and his theory on the object a; and the theory of Fonagy and colleagues on how the self develops and how affect regulation takes place in the context of attachment relationships. We outline similarities and differences in how identity is conceptualized within these perspectives and we discuss clinical implications.