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realistically or, whether it must be repressed, depends on the strength of the instinctual [drive] forces involved, on the individual’s mental coping capacities and on environmental conditions. Extrapolating and expanding on contemporary North American, European and Latin American dictionaries and writings (Akhtar’s 2009, Auchincloss and Samberg 2012; Laplanche and Pontalis 1973, Skelton 2006; Borensztejn 2014), (unconscious) conflicts can be conceptualized according to the following binaries: 1. External vs. Internal/Intrapsychic conflicts: the former referring to conflicts between the individual and his environment, while the latter refer to those within his own psyche; 2. Externalized vs. Internalized conflicts: the former pertain to internal conflicts that have been transposed upon external reality, and the latter to the psychic problems caused by the incorporation of environmental constrictions opposing one’s drives and desires; 3. Developmental conflicts vs. Anachronistic conflicts: the former refer to developmentally normative, phase specific, developmentally transformative conflicts caused by parental challenges to the child’s wishes or by contradictory wishes of the child himself (Nagera, 1966), and the latter to conflicts that are not age-specific and may underlie psychopathology during adulthood; somewhat similarly, this binary is specified in Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) as Oedipal conflicts vs. Defense conflicts; 4. Inter-systemic vs. Intra-systemic conflicts: the former refers to the tension between id and ego or between ego and superego (Freud, 1923, 1926); the latter (Hartman, 1939; Freud, A. 1965; Laplanche 1973) refers to that between different instinctual tendencies (love- aggression), or different ego attributes or functions (activity-passivity), or different superego dictates (modesty-success); 5. Structural conflict vs. Object Relations conflict: the former refers to a stressful divergence of agenda between the three major psychic structures, namely id, ego, and superego (Freud, 1926) experienced as belonging fully to the individual’s self, and the latter refers to a conflict in a psychic space that is antecedent to such structural differentiation (Dorpat, 1976; Kernberg, 1983, 2003); another formulation of this binary is Oedipal vs. Pre-Oedipal conflict; 6. Opposition type conflict vs. Dilemma of choice type conflict (Rangell, 1963); or, analogically Convergent vs. Divergent conflicts (Kris, A. 1984, 1985): the former refers to conflicts between intrapsychic forces that can be brought together by a compromise (formation), the latter, sometimes called ‘either-or’ conflicts, refer to those conflicts where such negotiations are unlikely and choosing one side of the pull, with the subsequent mourning or renouncing an alternative course, is imperative. A wide range of psychoanalytic orientations worldwide, with complex differences and overlaps, place varying degrees of emphasis on conflict. On one end of this spectrum are Contemporary Freudian and Kleinian orientations, which continue to retain conflict as a core concept in their formulation of psychic development and functioning. On the other side of the spectrum may be Kohut’s Self Psychology perspectives, a developmental theory based on deficits and the attainment of psychic structure that presents a different paradigm altogether in
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