Back to Table of Contents
ego needs, ego nuclei, ego passage, ego regression, ego relatedness, ego strength-weakness and ego´s sense of self disappearance, gives a very extensive theoretical and technical exposition of ego psychology. At first, the way Erik H. Erikson ’s psycho-social stages of the life cycle were transmitted/translated to Latin American analysts, sometimes unfortunately lacked his proverbial richness of interactive and regressive-progressive complexity, especially typical of his transition between stages. The focus was then largely on only the sequential and linear progression. Presented in this limited way, it is viewed as opposed to other more dynamic, spiral, interactive proposals that progress and regress in a very complex interaction, less epigenetically developmentally (pre)determined. However, perhaps due to Grinbergs’ (1971, 1974) important earlier work in Spanish (and its English translation), it is increasingly better understood that Erikson emphasizes the crucial cultural and social aspects that participate in forming the ‘ego identity’ out of many partial identifications via processes of introjections, internalizations and integrations. In this sense it is understood that the ego has subjective aspects of the self and it is responsible for the integration of the different mental representations of the self as an important function and structure of the ego. Latin America had originally a somewhat limited view of Ego Psychology theory as dedicated exclusively to the treatment of neurotic psychopathology. In this context Otto F. Kernberg ’s unique integration of Ego Psychology and Object Relations theories with specific technical indications and methodology extending analytically oriented treatments to borderline patients with borderline personality organizations, presenting a theoretical overlap between ego psychology and object relations approach, was significant. In Latin America some started to consider Kernberg’s contribution as a ‘Contemporary Ego Psychology’ integrative approach, especially relevant to patients with difficulty in symbolization with the borderline personality organization. Thus, newly recognizing the overlaps between Ego Psychology theory and Object Relation theory , Otto Kernberg was at first considered primarily Object Relations theorist, and only gradually he began to be viewed as representative of a rapprochement between Ego Psychology and Object Relations , as his theory also incorporated Klein’s splitting, pertaining to the paranoid-schizoid position. Kernberg´s technique (Kernberg, O.F., F.E. Yeomans, J.F. Clarkin et al. 2008) in working with borderline patients, ‘Transference-Focused Psychotherapy’ (TFP) is taken very much into account in Mexico. Because of his arrival from Austria first to Chile and his subsequent life and medical studies there, Kernberg is considered, in a sense, a Latin American theorist. His knowledge of Spanish language, his travels through the Latin American continent, giving lectures, plus the fact that he is a prolific author of many books written or translated to Spanish, makes his theory accessible (with its both Ego Psychology and Object Relations aspects). Chile is becoming the second Latin American country after Mexico, that relates to aspects to Ego Psychology theory, mainly in working with borderline pathologies. Clinical concepts such as co-constructions of therapeutic alliance of Elizabeth Zetzel and working alliance of Ralph Greenson are important in Latin American psychoanalytic
299
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online