Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry

162 Pierre-Yves Brandt, Claude-Alexandre Fournier, and Sylvia Mohrand empowered at the same time with a loss ofinterest in the individual’s social life.Secondary identifications overlay this chronologicallypreceding primary identification. Thisprocess is no longer achieved by incorporation,but rather by introjection. This process conveyspeople and with them their inherent qualitiesfrom the inside to the outside in a fantasticalmode. Contrary to incorporation, it does notnecessarily imply reference to bodily limitations.Contrary to the first two identificationmodes, the third one, partial identification, canbe achieved without any relationship of love orhatred. On the basis of ability, or will, subjectscan identify themselves, or put themselves inthe same situation (community) as a person.Moreover, identification can concern a person’sunique trait.According to Freudian theory, identity can(from the view of the second stage) be tracedback to the construction of the self, of the ego.In the end, it stems from the product of the threeidentification modes. The construction of theindividual’s identity is thus initially marked bythe dyadic relationship (more or less undifferentiatedaccording to the authors’ required criteria)with the mother.As mentioned previously, primary identificationis the basis of the identifications that follow.Individual identity will develop based on this relationshipwith the mother. This dyadic relationshiptakes the lead, provides protection, and assuagesanguish. From the point of view of its object, therelationship can be projected at a higher levelonto a divine figure. It is therefore the maternalfunction (the qualities special to mothering) thatis projected on divinity (which is, in this sense,sexually undifferentiated) (Freud, 1927).The triangular relationship including a thirdparty succeeds this dyadic relation. The thirdrole is that of the father. Freud theorizes on theestablishment of this three-way relationship bymeans of the Oedipus complex. He estimatesit emerging at around 3 to 5 years of age, butit begins even sooner. This relational switch issimultaneous with the beginnings of sexual differentiation.Young children learn that they are aboy or a girl. The father interrupts the privilegedrelationship between mother and child. He necessitatesa sort of forsaking, a necessary separationfrom the mother. For the young boy, this breakleads to a relationship of rivalry and love with thefather. The young boy will thus identify himselfwith the father while simultaneously being hisrival (for access to the mother). Through thisexperience of duality, trying to keep two parentalimages together (the good and the bad father,according to Mélanie Klein), the child integratestwo structural taboos, just as much individual ascollective, which are the taboo on incest and thetaboo on murder. As much as in the introjectionof the parental images, what will survive in theformation of the personality is what has beeninternalized from the relationships among themembers of the triad. From a religious point ofview, the father’s arrival marks the arrival of law,of separation, and of judgment. In representationof the divinity, the paternal characteristicsprojected onto the divine figure do not erase thematernal traits, but rather join them. In adolescence,becoming a man or a woman (a sexuallydifferentiated adult) allows access to reproductionand therefore to identifications with paternalor maternal qualities and with the qualitiesof parents and adults in general. These partialidentifications go together with an attack on theparental imagos, a confrontation that is necessaryfor differentiation. Adolescents must be ableto assert themselves through rebellion to escapeidentification with a role model. Each integrationof differentiation (subject/object, pleasure-ego/reality-ego, differences in sex or generation) canbe traumatic if there are no anticipatory representations.“The cleavage of the Ego is a denial ofthese differences when they catch by surprise anunprepared by anticipatory representations Ego”(p. 98).(7) It is therefore a lack of sufficient representativeintroductions that make identity crisestraumatic for the child.As demonstrated by Freud, religious figurescan be empowered via the unresolved oedipalconflict to escape such a growth process and tolead to what he calls neurotic religion. However,religious figures can also serve as a support