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associated with Freud’s development of his own Ego Psychology, and continued until 1937; and the fourth phase coincided with the influential publications of Anna Freud (1936), Erik Erikson (1937), Karen Horney (1937), Heinz Hartmann (1939/1958), Abram Kardiner (1939), and H. S. Sullivan (1940), and depicted the specific version of Ego Psychology formulated by Hartmann with his concepts of innate (pre-conflictual) ego functioning and ego autonomy. Overall, while it is true that the major texts of (North American) Ego Psychology were translated and published in France, Italy and Germany, it is also true that Ego Psychology survived in Europe not only in the form given to it by Heinz Hartmann and his collaborators, but mainly in the form of a series of autonomous contributions, which will be specified in the European section. Latin American Perspective: Latin America in general has not done justice to Ego Psychology. Mexico is the only Latin American country, where psychoanalytic institutes include Ego Psychology as part of the curriculum. In other Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil, there is no specific seminar of Ego Psychology throughout the psychoanalytic training. Especially in Argentina and Uruguay, probably because of Melanie Klein´s and also Jacques Lacan´s influence, the Ego Psychology theory is viewed as too close to cognitive behavioral theory, void of libidinal aspects and subjectivity. Cecilio Paniagua (2014) hypothesizes that many of his colleagues in Latin America are ignorant of the evolution of Ego Psychology since Hartmann, and of contemporary models that have been widespread in North America; such ignorance then would breed prejudicial critique of Ego Psychology as superfluous and superficial, downplaying the importance of drives and unconscious fantasy. Pereira et al. (2007) and Arbiser (2003) also speculate about possible influence of socio-cultural and political views, and a strong regional theoretical preference towards European authors over their North American counterparts, which seems to uniquely influence reception of Ego Psychology. However, Hartmann, Kris, Lowenstein, Jacobson and Anna Freud are an important part of a core curriculum of psychoanalytic institutes in Mexico, where it is expected that a candidate knows Erikson´s stages of epigenesis throughout the life cycle and Anna Freud`s “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense” from their preceding university studies. Perhaps the geographic proximity between Mexico and the United States, including accessibility of graduate and post-graduate studies in the USA plays a role. An example is Ramón Parres, one of the founders of the Mexican psychoanalytic society (Asociación Psicoanalítica Mexicana APM), who studied psychiatry and then psychoanalysis in the United states. In his book “El Psicoanálisis como Ciencia” (Parres 1977) he describes various mechanisms of defense, transference, and the influence of the unconscious processes on the conscious ones, from an Ego Psychology point of view.
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