Internalization, Incorporation, Introjection and Identification

Abstract

The reality of the individual that is experienced and transmitted to the external world mainly stems from one’s internal reality. A number of concepts and theories has been developed to explain how we percept the external world, construct the representations of those perceptions and what are the common shared internal experiences about that. Prominent concepts on this issue include internalization, identification, incorporation and introjection. However, from the days those concepts suggested until today there has been no consensus on boundaries between them. Thus, these concepts sometimes seem to be used interchangeably or understood as defense mechanisms. In this paper we tried to give comprehensive information about these concepts in terms of their historical development and contend.

Keywords

• Internalization
• incorporation
• introjection
• identification