Orientation, disorientation and identity development

Abstract

In this chapter, the author explores, through a literary analysis, the dynamics of orientation and disorientation in relation to identity development. Taking further from earlier work, the author focuses in this chapter on the relevance of the newborn’s existential and catastrophic anxieties and of Klein’s notion of unconscious phantasy and how these influence mental processes in early experiences and the shaping of identity. Drawing from the Divine Comedy, which begins with Dante’s psychic experience of disorientation, Di Ceglie illustrates aspects of his poetic psychic journey from disorientation to orientation towards God as the supreme orientating object in his internal world and in the culture of his time. She examines how this leads to the most powerful affirmation of his poetic, political and religious identity. Dante’s Divine Comedy is shown to be relevant for explorations of identity not only because of its multi-layered expressions of the human mind but also because we can find its roots in infantile experiences of emotions and phantasies which are both singular and universal.