General Discussion

A common use of this term refers to the ways in which, often unconsciously, people might “identify” with their aggressors through mimicry. For example, a child victim of verbal abuse who becomes verbally abusive toward others might be imitating the behaviors he was subjected to, as an attempt to experience a sense of safety (other defense mechanisms, such as displacement, might also be at play). Identification with the aggressor is, in this way, understood as a form of imitation of behaviors or ways of being.

Ferenczi understood identification with the aggressor differently. He observed that many victims of childhood sexual abuse experienced helplessness and anxiety in the relationship with their abusers, to the point of “[subordinating] themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor, to divine each one of his desires and to gratify these; completely oblivious to themselves they identify themselves with the aggressor” (Ferenczi, 1949). As psychoanalyst Jay Frankel (2002) puts it, “we stop being ourselves and transform ourselves into someone else’s image of us.” To be safe from abuse, the child needs to learn what is expected of them and become who the adult needs them to be, by “identifying” with the adult’s needs, expectations, demands, and desires.

This is not a conscious process, a decision, or a choice the child makes. The process of identification is unconscious and automatic, getting reinforced with each interaction, particularly when no other adult is available to witness, protect, or help us make sense of the experience, or when the abuse is denied, minimized, or invalidated. The child will develop an acute sensibility to other people’s moods, anticipate other’s demands and expectations, and accommodate their own self to what they consciously or unconsciously perceive that the aggressor requires from them.

"Identifying" with the adults around us is not necessarily a bad thing and, in fact, can be very important in the development of our personality and sense of self. However, psychoanalyst and trauma expert Elizabeth Howell (2014) notes that Ferenczi does not talk about healthy identification that supports the child’s developing identity. Instead, traumatic identification with the aggressor is a response to events that cannot be assimilated into narrative memory but, instead, remain unlinked and dissociated.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/relationships-healing-relationships/202401/identification-with-the-aggressor-and-complex