Identification — Symptom or Sublimation?

Abstract

Two years ago, Dr. Reyburn presented an article entitled “Identification in the Missionary Task.”¹ There he described personal experiences in the field and pointed out some of the limitations encountered in identifying. That article emphasized the need for close contact between sender and receiver in the process of communication. There was a protest launched against pietism which tends to put man out of touch with the world about him.

In his present paper Reyburn focuses upon some of the motivations for identification, particularly guilt, as experienced consciously or unconsciously by middle-class American missionaries. In so doing he is not trying to discourage missionaries from identification. Looking at the problem from another point of view does not make the first view untrue, but it is simply another perspective on complex behavior. Why do some people seem driven to identification while others shun it?