Essere vero per un falso oggetto: una visione dell'identificazione, Priscilla Roth

In this work the author deals with patients who in some respects fall into the category of the 'as if' personality described by H.Deutsch, while the parodistic and superficially exhibited modalities that characterize their emotional manifestations are particularly impressive. The author refers to the hypotheses of Malcom Reisemberg according to wich these patients have developed a false structure within themselves based on a falsely idealized objact; 'falsely' because of the excess of idealization as well as the fact that it is a pathological object. The author connects the 'as if' characteristic and the evident aspects of falseness and superficiality in manifesting emotions, to the presence of these same characteristic in the primary object of each patient, and she suggests the hypothesis that the idealization and the identifications could be accentuated when the image of the object is threatened by the fact that the patient perceives its inadequacy. In the clinical case presented, the author traces the patient's ego disturbance back to identification with a primary object felt as being false, with a falseness that was never consciously recognized as such. When the false objact is the nearest available thing to a good object, then the patient must resort to massive splittings and idealization sustained by the manic defence against the unbearable depression deriving from the patient's real understanding of the true nature of his/her object.