“Incorporation” is a psychoanalytic term introduced by Sigmund Freud to describe the fantasmatic action whereby the subject takes into and retains within himself objects from the external world. While designating a specific infantile mode of relating to objects, incorporation also has an important place in general metapsychology and in the psychoanalytic understanding of particular pathological disorders. Freud does not produce any one sustained exposition of incorporation. His allusions to it are scattered, and were considered sufficiently indistinct for the editors of the Standard Edition of Freud's works in English to include only one entry for it in the extensive index to the series. The subsequent writings of psychoanalysts Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok have sought to clarify and underscore the conceptual significance of incorporation.
Incorporation in Freud
Freud first discusses incorporation explicitly – if briefly...
1872 words
Citation: Ray, Nicholas. "Incorporation". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 April 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5504, accessed 09 June 2026.]
