**2. The formation of ego**

Garcia-Roza [18] calls attention to the fact that the Freudian Unconscious was a true rupture in relation to early understanding of the concept, taking into consideration that Freud was not the first to speak about this concept. The biggest novelty was the affirmation of the Unconscious as a decisive factor to subjectivity and consequently the subversion of the subject notion that would find expression in the elaboration of the first topic of Freudian theory, that is, at the conception of a split subjectivity, marked by the dialectical articulation between two intricate psychic systems.

As psychoanalytic theory advances, especially in conjunction with the second topical elaboration, the vision about subjectivity acquires more complexity in a way that goes beyond the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious. Psychoanalytic theory creates a model of personality articulated in three psychic instances—Id, Ego, and Superego—which indicates, as Laplanche and Pontalis [19] point out, the emergence of an intersubjective field conceived in the molds of intersubjective relationships, that is, where the psychic instances act as internalized "subjects" (objects).

Freud, in his reflection about the character of Ego in the text The Ego and Id [20], assumes the existence of a certain heterogeneity or gradation in the constitution of this psychic instance, adding complexity to the structure of the Ego. Freud argues that this internal differentiation has a strict relation with the mechanisms of identification, in a sense that this makes the Ego altered by processes of internalization of

objects that passed through intense libidinal investment. In other words, the mechanisms of identification would be a constitutive process of Ego. Consequently, the classical Freud affirmation states "the character of the Ego is a precipitate of abandoned object-cathexes and that it contains the history of those object-choices" [20].

The father of psychoanalysis supports that the identification and the object cathexis happened at the same time; hence, the Ego assumes to itself certain object characteristics in a transformation process from object libido to narcissistic libido [21]. By carefully analyzing this process, Freud notes a certain tendency of Ego fragmentation due to numerous identifications and questions himself about the power of those identifications that happen in the early childhood or the primary identification. Such identifications would have a special character in a sense that is independent of id object cathexis. The primary identification would happen in a direct way, being influenced by the triangular nature of Oedipal complex and by the constitutional bissexuality of the individual.

Klein [22] went even further, after extensive study of the primitive mind, developing a theory of positions, which involved the paranoid-schizoid position and depressive position. She defends a constellation of anxieties, defenses, and internal and external object relations specific to each position. Therefore, the infants after the birth do not differentiate themselves from their mothers, and they are considered an extension of their mother's breasts. When the baby has a good experience, the breast becomes a good breast (love), and when the breast is not present or does not satisfy their needs, the breast becomes a bad breast (hate); this is the paranoid-schizoid position. At this moment, the infant lives a complete fusion, where there is no differentiation of what is inside and outside, from what is one or another. Omnipotence and idealization are important aspects of this activity as well as the splitting. Klein assumes the very young infant to have a rudimentary Ego, although unintegrated.

At the entrance of a third in the relationship, the infant starts to realize its dependence on another outside, the mother starts to be recognized as another and separate from "I." At this moment starts the depressive position. The feelings are characteristically ambivalent; hate being transformed by the infant's own love into remorse. Typically, the anxiety that is felt is a fear of damaging a loved one. Objects become threatened, or damaged, and that brings out concern for their suffering. Relationships with objects then begin to allow more separateness; less control (omnipotence) is demanded. And defenses that operate against anxiety and remorse are different from the primitive and violent ones previously described against the paranoid fear of being persecuted.

Since the beginning of life, human beings need to deal with ambivalence: life and death. The deflection of death drive would be the first projection, the most primitive mechanism of the internal world in front of helplessness generated by the birth trauma. The infant's body internal and external perceptions are anxious to the rudimentary psychic apparatus. The infant mind creates primitive defense mechanisms to deal with the anxiety arising from these feelings (good/bad breast, life/death). These primitive relations are the first identifications with external objects. Klein does not give as much importance to mothers' emotional development as the precedents Bion and Winnicott. Although she has talked a lot about the environmental context, she kept the attention to the infant's internal world, together with several innate emotions, that will allow or not the good fruition of the good internalized object [23].

Ogden [24] argued about Winnicott's idea that a baby does not exist separate from a mother's provision, and at the same time mother and baby are separated individuality [25]. And yet, Bion [26] and Rosenfeld [27] traced their own understanding about
