THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Implicit in Kernberg's emphasis on self and object representations is the important
assumption that it is not simply objects that are internalized, but object relationships.
The process of internalisation is initiated by infants' felt sense of disruption in their
relationships with primary care-givers, thereby prompting the infants to preserve
significant aspects ofthe relationship through internalisation (Behrend & Blatt, 1985).
9.3.4 Introjective identification, projective identification, and assimilation
Identification is a "psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect,
property or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model
the other provides" (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973, p. 205). Internalisation is the
consequence of introjective identification, whereby the ego identifies with the object and
in so doing, is altered by becoming like the object (Hinshelwood, 1991). Normally the
personality has a fluid structure in which the self (ego) exists in dynamic relation to its
internal objects, "identifying with them for shorter or longer periods as may be realistic in
the circumstances ofthe external world at the time" (Hinshelwood, 1991, p. 436).
Heimann's (1942) use of the term assimilation describes the positive manifestation of
internalisation, whereby the ego identifies with the introject (introjective identification),
and is enhanced by this identification as a result of now having the benign object's
qualities. She contrasts this with unassimilated objects, felt to be alien parts of the
personality, which "act as foreign bodies embedded in the self' (Cited in Hinshelwood,
1991, p. 222). It could be said that it is precisely the subject's experience ofintrojects as
"foreign bodies" which defines their essence. Introjects are felt to be autonomous alien
presences which substantially influence individuals' emotional states and behaviour from
inside their bodies and/or minds. Schafer (1972) is critical of the concept of introjects,
arguing that the term is an unnecessary anthropomorphism, and a reification of a
fantasised process: