*The Psychoanalytic Crisis: The Place of Ego in a Contemporary World DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107249*

must decide prematurely what is their object choice and who will identify concretely with one's body [55].

The analyst's work is trying to be a continent, decoding one's feelings, giving them meaning and names to their emotional experience [58]. Consequently, the analyst work is not work with the concreteness thought [26].

The symbolic formation begins very early, primarily comes the symbolic equation (in paranoid-schizoid position); however, it changes its character and function by the maturation of Ego and objects relation and consequently, Ego integration. The problem of symbolic formation must be always examined in the context of Ego relation with its objects, the analytical work is done by analyst and patient relation [59].

The symbol represents the absence, it can be the presence in the absence too, as long as the Ego develops and integrates, three changes in relation with the object affect the sense of Ego reality: a major consciousness of the ambivalence, the diminish of intensity by the projection, and the increased differentiation between self and the object. By these three processes, the subject might bear the object separation, due to introjection, there is a rise sense of reality, both internal and external. The internal world became different from the external world [20, 23, 60].

In the analytical work, the impotent thought gradually gives place to a more realistic thought. Simultaneously, there is a certain driving primary object modification. The Ego starts worrying to save the object from its own aggression and possess, which implies a certain measure of direct driving object inhibition, both aggressive and libidinal [22].

This situation is a powerful stimulus to a symbol creation, and these acquire a new function that alters its character. The symbol is necessary to move the object originally aggressive and diminish the fault and fear of loss. The symbol here is not an equivalent of the original object, it is only a partial object—once the displacement object is to save it—and the guilt lived in relation to it is lower than those coming from the original object. The symbols are also created by the internal world as a mean to restore, re-create, re-capture, and possess again the original object. Thus, the sexual organ that is presented in the external reality of subject is not only an organ, but also a symbol, and symbolic, full of unconscious *phantasies* [35–39].

Consequently, the capability of living a loss and the desire to re-create the object inside of self gives freedom to the individual unconscious in the symbol's use. And how a symbol is recognized as a subjective creation, differently from the symbolic equation, it might be freely used by its creator. In this sense, the analytical work would come through the expansion of object symbolic sense, allowing the body appropriation [34].

In the symbolic equation, the symbol-substitute is felt as being the original object. The substitutes of their own properties are not recognized or admitted. It is used to deny an ideal object's absence or control a persecutory object [35]. In this individual emotional developmental moment, the lack of body integration could be seen as a failure in this maturation symbolic process. There is no metaphorical thought [37].

The proper symbol available to sublimation and Ego development enablers is felt as representing the object. Its own characteristics are recognized, respected, and used.

The symbolic formation emerges when the depressive feelings prevail over the paranoid schizoid, when the object separation, the ambivalence, the guilt, and the loss can be lived and tolerated [23]. The symbols are not used to deny the loss, but to overcome it.

The contemporary Ego presents a symbolic emptiness, as there is a concreteness solving the self-issues and being in the world. However, the analyst place is the same since the creation of psychoanalysis, that is, to help the patient to name own anguish, accept own limits in face of external reality without emptying oneself of what possess of good to allow a space to think emotionally and create possibility of change.

Hence, the crisis that is seen today in psychoanalysis is when the "analyst" tries to occupy a place that is not own, but of a socialist, anthropologist, or even a physician, with fast solution and with high acceptance.
