In psychology, the concept of identity goes back to the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. However, in psychoanalysis the concept does not play a central role. Therefore, we provide a historical review of the implicit contributions of psychoanalysis to the concept in four steps, using Erikson’s work as the central reference point and suggesting a narrative and co-narrative conception of identity that acknowledges the interpersonal and social process character of identity based on a realist epistemological position. We review psychoanalytic contributions leading up to Erikson, especially that of his teacher Federn. We summarize Erikson’s concept of ego-identity, which served to extend a view of development driven by biological maturation and identifications to include sociocultural influences in adolescence and beyond. We identify six essential aspects of identity in his work and highlight his stress on adolescence as the cradle of identity and the life story. Object relations theory implicitly contributed to a view of identity springing from a matrix of others-with-self, but only Kernberg took up the concept of identity in a clinically relevant way. Later authors like Ogden and Ferro implicitly radicalized the interpersonal nature of identity by exclusively focusing on its moment-to-moment shifts in interaction. Finally, we argue for a narrative conception of identity, bending back to Erikson’s conception of identity as a life story that reaches beyond the couch, presenting an updated concept of narrative identity which is enriched by psychoanalytic developments of the past fifty years.