There's an unjustified assumption here that identification is done automatically, & must be fought…

There's an unjustified assumption here that identification is done automatically, & must be fought against persistently. I'm not convinced that's the case. People identify strongly in proportion to stress and threat -- comfortable people are cosmopolitan in a way that manifests as a weak attachment to groups (as opposed to a willingness to cross group boundaries).

Certainly, a purely internal pressure to keep identity small (much like pressuring oneself to *stop thinking* during meditation) is counterproductive. But, if you find yourself identifying strongly with an ingroup, you might be better off asking yourself what outgroup is so threatening to you that you must create an ingroup in your head (and whether or not your sense of being threatened by that outgroup is rational).