Mirroring to me is copying the other because of the positive identification of idealizing and twinship is seeing the other is like you. I have a single good example of both in one day from my therapy.

I loved the "look" of my T's hands, especially her wedding ring on her warm, darker-skinned fingers (she's Filipina). I have a picture of my mother holding me in my baptismal gown when I was 6 months old and I notice her hands/arms holding me and their "strength." Anyway, I don't wear my wedding ring because it's slightly too small (I've gained weight :-) but I decided to wear it for therapy because it made me feel like it would remind me I wanted to be like my T (ideation and mirroring). So, I wore it one day to work from which I would leave to go to therapy.

I was helping another woman at work and she suddenly exclaimed, "Perna, I've never noticed your wedding ring!" and I almost said, "That's because I only wear it on Fridays" only I thought about that in the split second before I spoke and started to laugh. It struck me as so ridiculous and funny I told my coworker what had happened, the whole story including about my T and how I idealized her, what I was thinking, (twinning, so the coworker could enjoy and laugh too and she did) and then told my T the whole story again when I went to see her. She and I both laughed at the joke (twinship) and my T further commented on how if I'd actually said that to someone they'd have thought I was a member of some sort of bizarre club or something :-) We enjoyed the laugh together and it was all because I was trying to mirror her.

Mirroring (to me) is basically how an infant with no words learns from its mother; it's the little girl with her little broom following her mother around and "helping," copying doing what the mother does or the little boy with his toy tools/lawn mower, etc. Emotionally it's my T being "calm" and quiet and my wanting to be like that. We can pick up feelings and ways of responding from others and T's try to be "good" examples. T's can mirror us though too; mine would use the words I used (English was not her native language and I often got to teach her words like "ornery" which she tried to use only it came out "ordinary" and I laughed and explained I was lots of things but "ordinary" wasn't one of them) and they might mirror our expressions or postures (so we can see how others see us).