REFLECTIONS ON THE PROCESS OF INTERNALISATION

Summary

This paper explores the psychoanalytic process of internalisation, focusing on how experiences of relationships with important others gradually become part of the child’s internal emotional world. Williams considers how external relationships, particularly early relationships with caregivers, can be transformed into internal representations that influence how the child experiences themselves and others.

The paper is particularly concerned with the development of the internal world and the ways in which emotional experiences can become internalized through processes such as identification and introjection. Williams also considers what may happen when these processes are disturbed, especially when the child has experienced deprivation, difficult relationships, or overwhelming emotional experiences.

A central idea is that internalisation is not simply the mental copying of an external relationship. Rather, it is an ongoing psychological process through which experiences are transformed and incorporated into the personality. Understanding this process can therefore help clinicians make sense of a child’s internal relationships, anxieties, and patterns of relating to others