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Leon and Rebeca Grinberg In his pioneering, today considered classical, publication “Yo y Self: Su delimitación conceptual” (“The Ego and the Self: its conceptual delimitation”), Leon Grinberg et al. (1966) addresses both conceptual and semantic difficulties of the usual use of Ego and the Self, and follows up with his own attempt to resolve them. In the etymological part of the paper, Grinberg traces the origins of the term ‘self’ (‘ipse’ on Latin) used as a prefix part of a composite word, pronoun and adjective into its roots in Classical Latin and Old English languages: Out of thirteen original composite words in Old English, containing ‘self’ (Latin ‘ipse’) as a prefix with reflexive meaning, the ‘self will’ is the only one that is currently used. Used as a pronoun and adjective pronoun, it indicates that the reference is made to the named person or thing and nothing else. Furthermore, while the non- declined forms have been in common usage since the 12th century, literary use predates the common usage: non-declined forms can be found already in the poem “Christus” by Cynewulf, from around 900 C.E. With the meaning of ‘same’ (‘mismo’ in Spanish) the term Self had already appeared in Beda, in the “Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum” (Church History of the British People) between 673 and 735 C.E. Addressing himself to the conceptual problems, Grinberg states, “Addressing the problem surrounding the psychoanalytic conceptualization of the Self begins explicitly with Hartmann, when he makes the distinction between ‘Ego’ as a psychic system and ‘Self’ as a concept referring to ‘oneself’” (Grinberg et al.1966, p. 239), although he also mentions an important antecedent in a previous contribution by Federn (1928), who studied the Ego as a subject of ego functions and also as an object of internal experiences. According to Grinberg, Hartmann’s contribution lies in opening the door for Jacobson’s articulation of self- representation. After reviewing Freud’s ideas on the subject and the models of Self proposed by Klein-Segal, Hartmann-Jacobson and Wisdom, building on Wisdom’s model of nuclear and orbital introjections and projections, in conjunction with Jacobson’s self and object representations, and introjective and internalizing processes, Grinberg and collaborators proposed their own ‘attempt of systematization’ (ibid, p. 239): Ego is the psychic structure described by Freud, which includes the unconscious fantasy of the Self into the Ego. It corresponds to the nucleus of Wisdom’s model and contains the self- representation of Jacobson. Non-Ego is within the Self and it includes the orbital of Wisdom (internal objects, the Superego, and the object representations of Jacobson). Self includes the Ego and the Non-Ego. It is the totality of the person himself. It also includes the body with all its parts, the psychic structure with all its parts, the link with external and internal objects and the subject as opposed to the world of objects. In the concluding remarks on the semantic aspect of the subject, Grinberg et al. review the multitude of terms for Self in Spanish psychoanalytic literature, especially as it regards translations: Self is called “Yo”, “personalidad”, “persona”, “sí mismo”, “uno mismo”, “ser”
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