Book excerpt: This fascinating book offers an in-depth exploration of the gradual development of the concept of identification as it has evolved in the Freudian tradition of psychoanalysis. Featuring a detailed review of the key Freudian texts, referencing them in their original German, this volume demonstrates how psychoanalysis sheds light on the richness and complexity of the identification process in human psychology, at both the individual and collective levels. The author closely follows the various reformulations of the theory – undertaken by Freud in the course of three different periods – and contextualises them within her clinical experience with various pathologies and her observations of the development of individuals, revealing throughout the great extent to which this fundamental process is unconscious. Providing a critical examination of a fundamental Freudian concept, this volume is not only a teaching manual serving specifically to train psychoanalysts and psychotherapists but is also an important read for anyone interested in human sciences, philosophy and the history of psychoanalysis.