36: Idealization

The author presents Don Quixote as an example of idealization: who sees a homely peasant girl as a noblewoman, his aged nag as a steed, and so on. He does not conjure his visions from thin air, but transforms reality in a manner he finds to be more suitable to his desires.

In a more realistic sense, idealization involves seeing only the good in people, situations, and things and even exaggerating their positive qualities while ignoring or minimizing their negative ones.

The classic example is infatuation, which is less in the manner of love than in the need to be loved by someone, and convincing oneself that the object of affection is "perfect" for us and therefore worth the desire we feel for them and that which we wish them to hold for us. And naturally, this feeling becomes reversed as we begin to perceive them such as they really are, and we experience an equally strong sense of rage and betrayal, which may be directed inwardly.

In that sense, narcissism can be considered as an infatuation with an idealized self. Religion can be considered an infatuation with the imagination of a perfect god. People may idealize an inanimate object, their profession, or any number of things.

Idealization is also thought to be prominent in dependent personality disorders, which couples the idealization of another person with a lack of self-confidence, resulting in an excessive need to be taken care of.