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full of otherness (criticism, rejection), the author would start from exploration of the figure’s motivations. Alvarez follows the Kleinian picture of the mind as containing an inner world of (more or less integrated) aspects of the self and of various internal objects (Alvarez 1999). Pertinent are examples of children with apparent learning difficulties due to omnipotence or shame or despair is motivated by an internal object which they see as stupid, or otherwise impeded, so the children play stupid to ‘keep the object company’, as it were. As the internal object begins to become more robust, viable and more intelligent, the children may begin to reveal and to use their intelligence. In this author’s view (Alvarez, 2010; Alvarez and Lee, 2004), no feeling or function can ever be seen in purely one-person psychology terms. It is toward what kind of object various feelings are directed, and this depends on – and in turn affects – various processes of introjection, internalization and identification. As the patient gets older, such figures may get to be accepted as ego-syntonic, and more a part of the patient’s self. However, the author holds firm to the criterion of otherness, which may apply even in the most integrated of personalities. VI. Dd. The Self in the Psychoanalysis of the Adolescent Explorations related to the function of the Self, as a distinct entity with respect to the ego, derive from the influence of Peter Blos’ (1967) model on some of the authors who have dealt with adolescent psychoanalysis. According to Blos, adolescence can be modeled as a “second process of individuation” with reference to the first process of separation and individuation, described by Margaret Mahler; as the child detaches from the mother through a process of internalization of the image of her, similarly the adolescent must detach himself from his own internalized objects of his infancy to be able to turn to objects outside the family. Blos considers adolescent change as a transformation that leads to the definition of the structure of the character. This process is based on the establishment of realistic representations of Self and object, on a decrease in the rigidity of the Oedipal super-ego, on an increase of influence from the ego ideal and on the achievement of an adequate sexual identity. Blos describes adolescence through different sub-phases: – preadolescence: in which we witness the moment of greatest quantitative increase of the instinctual pressure and the reactivation of pregenital drives; – early adolescence: characterized by genital primacy and rejection of internal parenting objects; – late adolescence, phase of consolidation of the functions and interests of the ego and of the structuring of the representation of the self; – post-adolescence, during which the task of the reshaping of the personality must end and be completed.
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