Identifying marks of Latin American psychoanalysis Towards the definition of a River Plate model

Abstract

The author considers the influences that different psychoanalytic trends have had on the thought processes of psychoanalysts in the River Plate region. She begins by giving a history of the way in which these trends were shaped by the sociocultural context of the region, and of how the dialectical relationship between these two factors produced the River Plate region's (Argentina and Uruguay) own theoretical model. The author includes a study--albeit incomplete--of major local developments, and attempts to define the characteristics of a regional model. The model is based on the following parameters: the fundamental rules of evenly suspended attention and free association; the technical frame; links between theory and clinical practice such as transference-countertransference, resistance, identification, the analytic field; the concept of psychic change and its indicators; and the interpretive instrument. The author considers the past and present influence of Lacanian thought on this model. She concludes by reviewing some of these theoretical and clinical concepts.