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The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis, edited by Ross M . Skelton (2006 ), defines representation as an inner impressionistic image or imago of oneself (self-representation) or of others (object representations). A representation is not a memory as such, in that it does not serve as a registration of a particular interactional event. Nor does it closely approximate misleading aspects of reality as memories attempt to do. Instead, it combines a wide variety of impressions one has of one's objects and the interactions one has had with those objects, colored by one's fantasies. An internal image of one's own self that takes into consideration multiple aspects of the self and one's interactions with others is created. A mental representation is here defined as a theoretical construct that is inferred from the observable workings of an individual's mind. Mental representations, which may be conscious or unconscious, are acquired through experience, and are considered to be a substructure of the ego. Self and object representations do not start out as separate entities because the mental distinction between self and non-self is initially blurred. As infants interact with their objects, good and bad internal objects (mental representations) are formed that correspond roughly to their internal experience of the interactions they have with need- satisfying part object or aspects of their objects. As development progresses, the whole object becomes appreciated above and beyond its capacity to satisfy one's needs. At this point one has developed the capacity to maintain a stable object representation regardless of the state of one's needs (pressing or satiated). It is here that what has been referred to as ‘object constancy’ is achieved. In the absence of an entry ‘Representation’ in the recent psychoanalytic dictionary coming out of Latin America (Borenzstejn et al. 2014), there is broad acceptance of The Language of Psychoanalysis by J. Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis (1973), and a detailed study of all six entries relevant to the topic Representation: Instinctual (Drive) Representative ( Triebrepräsentanz ), Psychical representative ( Psychische Repräsentanz ), Ideational Representative ( Vorstellungsrepräsentanz ), idea / representation ( Vorstellung ), purposive idea ( Zielvorstellung ), and thing presentation/word presentation ( Sachvorstellung or Dingvorstellung , Wortvorstellung ). Contemporary Latin American authors (Herrera 2023, Peron 2002) writing on the concept of representation from psychoanalytic point of view build on a wide-ranging interdisciplinary inquiry involving philosophy of science, art and biology. Below is an example of this continent-specific synthetic scholarship, defining and differentiating (mental) representation as a metaphor, and representation and mental representation as a concept. In common language , representation may be a description of what appears to an observer as an ‘image’ of something being observed, yet the pertaining internal process of the observer’s brain involves specific configuration of the neural networks but does not contain any actual ‘images’ or models of the observed environment. In the broad-based inquiry into such paradoxes, the study involves philosophy of science’
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