Back to Table of Contents
The work of mourning leads directly to that of the construction of an inner world in and through the depressive position. The state of external relations is governed by that of internal relations. Klein stresses the concrete and even physical character of the experiences relating to this inner world. The theory of the inner world organizes relations between objects in that world. The substance of this world consists of unconscious fantasies, deep and early, which surface into consciousness through memories in feelings or memories in sensations, often hypochondriacal in character.
VI. A. Original Conceptualizations From Latin America
VI. Aa. Horacio Etchegoyen: Early Transference Etchegoyen (1982) considers that one of two differentiated explanatory principles lies at the basis of all conceptual frames: primary narcissism and primary object relations. These two principles call for a decision between one and the other This differentiation is questioned by Diana Rabinovich (1990). The theory of Symbiosis described by Bleger (1967) as the glischrocaric stage could be considered as an intermediate alternative between narcissism and object relations. Bleger’s description starts from a primary narcissistic stage in which the subject believes that the object is part of himself and it is only through repetitive experiences of frustration that he recognizes that something different from him exists and that it does not belong to him. For Etchegoyen, though, Freud’s whole work is based on the concept of primary narcissism. The object to which Freud refers to in “Three Essays on a Sexual Theory” (1905) is the object of the drive, only contingent and without entity to the point that a stable relationship with the object is considered pathological and defined as a point of fixation. Object relations are conceivable to Freud only after the new psychic act inaugurates the constitution of the Ego (Freud, 1914). Etchegoyen considers the theory of object relations as patrimony of the British School: Jones, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Balint, Paula Heimann among others. The common feature in these authors is the recognition of the importance of object relations and of an internal world which results from processes of introjection and projections. According to Etchegoyen, Jones paper “Hate and anal erotism in the obsessional neurosis” (1913) marks a turning point in the history of psychoanalytic theory. It is in this paper that for the first time anal erotism is not understood as an autoerotic manifestation but as a love and hate relationship with the mother that trains and takes care of the child. In Jones’s concept of aphanisis it is possible to find rudimentary elements of the theory of object relations but the more consistent development of it belongs to Melanie Klein and years later to Fairbairn. An important contribution of Horacio Etchegoyen to the exploration of early object relations in the psychoanalytic process is his clarification of early transference as a particular
506
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online