Dialogue between the conceptions of false self to Donald Winnicott and armor to Wilhelm Reich

• Grant number: 14/14769-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2014
• End date: September 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Luís Ferreira Abrão
• Grantee: Henrique Uva Do Amaral
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Theoretical researches that compare authors are increasingly recurrent in the academic-scientific area and demonstrated to be very useful and valid. Donald Winnicott and Wilhelm Reich brought great contributions both to psychoanalysis and to others areas of knowledge, and a comparative study could bring new reflections, questions and possible developments concerning theory and practice. Along the psychoanalytic literature, we realize that there are cases which the analyst has difficulty to manage about certain types of patients. They are called "difficult" to psychoanalytic treatment because they are very resistent to analyst influences and present no changes without a special handling. To understand this phenomenon, Reich introduces the concept of armor, while Winnicott uses the concept of false self. Our goal, therefore, will be to understand the similarities and differences between these concepts, from a historical perspective and a conceptual analysis. In order to do that, we start from method of historiography of psychoanalysis, based on literature survey, particularly of the epistemological approach, which we will question about how much a certain concept has changed or deepened in relation to Freuds conceptions, taking into account the difference of paradigms: Reich would relate to pulsional paradigm while Winnicott would relate to objectal paradigm; paying attention to the relation between concept and referent; and accepting that there could be commensurability and/or incommensurability between the authors. So we hope this research can contribute to the development of this field so some explored. (AU)