Imagining the Lost Other: The Experience of Loss and the Process of Identity Construction in Young People

Abstract

This article looks at the significance that the experience of loss may assume in the process of identity construction. Within a theoretical framework that views identities as intrinsically defined by the dialogue with the other, losing the other represents the negative case and is discussed in relation to the experiences of death of a significant other and of parental divorce. These two experiences are often linked in the literature because both are associated to the psychological process of mourning. On the basis of the life stories narrated by 10 young people who were among the participants in a wider autobiographical project on identities, attention is paid to the psychological mechanisms through which the ability to reconstruct a relationship with the lost one on an imaginary level may be important to the definition of the young person's identity.