IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

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and others; Mentalization; Identity; b) Regulation of affects, impulses and self-esteem. c) Internal and external communication; Elaboration; Symbolization, and d) Links with internal and external objects. The concept of Self has also facilitated development of reflections regarding analytical training, as presented by Cecilia Rodríguez (2016) in Mexico, who addressed the risk of developing an “Analytical False Self”. The concept of Self was also utilized in conceptualizing the interdisciplinary meanings of mental health, in a publication “Psicoanálisis relacional. Espacios intersubjetivos e interdisciplinarios de creación de significados para la salud mental” (“Relational psychoanalysis. Intersubjective and interdisciplinary spaces for the creation of meanings for mental health” ) , edited by Elena Toranzo and Alejandra Taborda (2017) in Argentina. Overall, these approaches are in line with Nemirovsky’s (2007, 2018) emphasis on the importance of developing adequate theoretical instruments to approach the clinical problems of the present times. He stresses the importance of psychoanalysts reinventing themselves at the present time, in a context, which may be ephemeral and difficult to encompass.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The tension, ambiguity and duality inherent in Freud’s ‘Ich’, which encompasses both the ‘ego’ as the mental structure and psychic agency, as well as the more personal experiential ‘self’, as the generator of subjective experience, has led to numerous psychoanalytic approaches to the age-old problem of what constitutes ‘the self’, in relation to ‘the ego’, in relation to the development of psychic structure, and in relation to the formulations of narcissism. Widening of scope of intense psychoanalytic interest in clinical conditions, which include serious nonorganic psychopathology of all age groups has brought the various developmental and clinical conceptualizations of the ‘self’ into prominence. While all contemporary psychoanalytic theories of early development and structure formation view the self as forming in relation to others, they also differ along numerous criteria, some of which are: relationship to drive theory in its various contemporary formulations; the relative centrality of the ‘other’; the weight given to real interaction versus unconscious fantasy/phantasy; whether the self is conceptualized as unitary or multiple or both, having predominantly structural or process characteristics; its relative permanence, continuity and/or fluidity and changeability. Often, divergences in conceptualizations of self reflect different frames of reference, different levels of discourse, and divergent translations between languages, stemming from different socio-cultural heritage.

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