Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres, MD, PhD, is full professor at the department of neuroscience, University of the Basque Country; head of the department of psychiatry, Basurto University Hospital, Bilbao, Spain; and training analyst at Centro Psicoanalítico de Madrid. He uses psychiatry and psychoanalysis to frame his clinical, teaching, and research activities, which focus mainly on psychosis and personality disorders – specifically on psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic approaches to both problems. Transference-focused psychotherapy occupies a special place in his clinical practice. Identity issues have been a long-standing interest throughout his career, particularly the intersection between individual and collective identity, politics, sexuality, and art.
Identity as a concept does not appear in psychoanalysis until the work of Erik Erikson in the 1950s, but today it is considered a key factor in understanding individuals and groups. It is a concept... (more)