Narcissistic identification is the form of identification following abandonment or loss of an object. This experience of loss starts at a very young age.
An example: wearing the clothes or jewellery of a deceased loved one.
In "Mourning and Melancholia" Sigmund Freud, having 'shown that identification is a preliminary stage of object-choice',
argued that the experience of loss, set in motion a regressive process that 'served to establish an identification of the ego with the abandoned object'.
In "The Ego and the Id", he went on to maintain that 'this kind of substitution has a great share in determining the form taken by the ego and that it makes an essential contribution towards building up what is called its "character"'
In terms of media contexts, Narcissistic Identification refers to the experience of being able to put oneself so deeply into a character (feel oneself to be so like the character) that one can feel the same emotions and experience the same events as the character is supposed to be feeling and experiencing.
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