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According to Tommaso Senise (1980, 1985, 1986), the Self represents an object of the Ego – “The self is the I experienced as an object by the subject Ego” (Senise 1980, p 1) – and the personal identity derives from the acquisition of a feeling of the global and unitary image of the Self. Senise defines processes of individuation, those endopsychic processes that allow the subjective constitution of one’s own identity, as an image of the person in its totality. The individuation processes allow the constitution, the permanence and the continuity of the Self as an interior entity, even in its continuous change in its space-time representation, as a function of the dialectical developments of the relations of the ego, both intrasystemic (ego, superego, id) and ‘intersystemic’ (in the relationships with external objects; unlike Hartmann’s use of the term ‘intersystemic’ for the conflict within the ego: see the separate entry CONFLICT). The notion of the self is both a given of our concrete experience (the feeling of self), and one of the functions of the ego. As a function of the ego, the self is constituted and develops as a continuous scheme, a permanent reference, as a mirror image of emotions and thinking, corporeal ego agent and in relation to reality. The structural modifications of the psychic organization that lead to a remodeling of the ego and the super-ego follow uneven, tortuous and contradictory roads, inducing episodes of anxiety, tension, confusion and disorganization, to which concomitants and consequent changes in the experiences of the image of Self and therefore of personal identity correspond. In the mature and normal adult a permanent and continuous oscillation and reciprocal modification between ego and self allows the subject to live as an object in relationships: within himself, in intra-psychic reality and with external reality. The experience of self-image does not reflect the actual situation of the ego. Hence identity disturbances, errors of assessment of one’s own abilities, difficulty in projecting oneself correctly into the future and formulating programs and defining realistic perspectives. Senise also distinguishes the self from the self-image and affirms that a greater or lesser coincidence between self and self-image is the index of the good or bad functioning of the described processes. In the analysis with the adolescent it is important to pursue an understanding of the image of him/herself to allow the adolescent to remain sufficiently attentive to the state of the Self in order, possibly, to act on the ego for a more and more correct and adequate use of this awareness.
VII. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT IN LATIN AMERICA VIII.
Latin American psychoanalysis overall developed from the intertwining of strong Freudian and Object Relations tradition and their various elaborations in the work of post- Freudian and post-Kleinian theorists in North America and Europe, prominently including French psychoanalytic authors, with the original ideas of the authors of the Latin American region. Many original and synthetic conceptualizations (below) emerged out of such panoramic variety of “Schools of Psychoanalysis” (Belchior Melícias 2015; also separate entries INTERSUBJECTIVITY, OBJECT RELATIONS THEORIES, COUNTERTRANSFERENCE). Notable is the bipolarity between the French and Anglo-
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