Idealisation
Immature defence at the minor image-distorting level of the DSM-IV scale; primary in McWilliams' scheme when primitive. The person attributes exaggerated perfection, power or goodness to someone, a group or an idea.
What drives it
Provides safety and borrowed worth: if the leader, mentor or partner is perfect, being attached to them protects me and makes me special. It also keeps aggression and disappointment out of view.
How it shows
Work
The founder who can do no wrong, the consultant whose every word gets quoted, the new CEO greeted as a saviour. Criticism of the idealised figure is met with hurt or hostility. The language is superlative and vague (“genius”, “visionary”) with few specific examples. Idealisation that ends tends to end in devaluation.
Relationships
Early romance in which the partner has no flaws and the person reorganises their life fast. A parent idealised while their failures are explained away. The idealised person often feels uneasy, sensing they're being set up to disappoint.
Self
You feel lifted just by association with someone, you speak of them in superlatives, and you notice yourself editing out information that doesn't fit.
What tells it apart
Halo effect: The halo effect is a mild rating bias that shifts with evidence; idealisation resists evidence and carries emotional investment, so critiques produce defensiveness rather than adjustment.
Limerence: Limerence is idealisation fused with romantic longing and preoccupation with being loved back; defensive idealisation also attaches to bosses, gurus and institutions with no romantic element.
Selfobject needs: mirroring, idealising, twinship (Kohut): Healthy idealising needs (Kohut) seek a figure to grow by and survive gradual disappointment; defensive idealisation collapses into contempt after one failure.
A test
Ask for three specific limitations of the idealised figure; easy, concrete answers mean admiration, while vagueness, irritation or one token flaw mean idealisation.
Questions to carry
- Asked for three specific limits of the admired figure, how readily do concrete answers come?
- Whose flaws have I been unwilling to see, and what would I lose by seeing them?
How strong the research is
clinical. Clinically well described; related research on positive illusions in relationships shows mild idealisation can be benign, which complicates the defensive reading.
Where it comes from
Sigmund Freud, 1914; Melanie Klein, 1946; Heinz Kohut, 1971; Otto Kernberg, 1975
On the family tree: Sigmund Freud
Sources
- Otto F. Kernberg, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism (1975)
- Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People and Organizations (2006)