Apfelbaum - On Ego Psychology A Critique of The Structural Approach To Psycho-Analytic Theo UNDERLIGHTED

(1966).
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 47:451-475

On Ego Psychology: A Critique of the Structural Approach to Psycho-Analytic Theory
Bernard Apfelbaum
The Ever-Seething Cauldron
A compelling case has been made in support of the structural approach to psycho-analytic theory. It rests on
the view that if instinctual drive consists of pure motive forceviolent, spasmodic, and blindthen there must
also be structures through which this force operates. For such force to exist without structure is 'inconceivable',
in Gill's words, 'because a force must be somehow confined and the confining must be itself a structure' (1963p.
143). Since early psycho-analytic theory could be seen as lacking these necessary structural conceptions, Gill
(1959p. 5) maintains that
if the early psychoanalytic view of motivation had been taken seriously, the most ordinary item of
behavior could be conceived as occurring only as a result of powerful forceswhat Rapaport called
'a battle of the Titans'.
Papaport (1951bpp. 249f) attempted to capture this early view of the internal world in still another metaphor
(one originated by Freud), that of 'an ever-seething cauldron' in which
strivings clashed continuously with each other without mitigation, in a perpetual revolution and every
time something happened in consciousness or behavior it issued from a new equilibrium reached by
clashing drives.
Rapaport goes on to suggest that Horney and others, in their desire to avoid this seething cauldron concept
'to get away altogether from the beasts that struggle down under somewhere'focussed exclusively on 'the
adaptive and social functions of the ego' thereby 'rejecting the drive psychology of psychoanalysis.' He proposes
that
this thesis and antithesis found a synthesis in psycho-analytic ego psychology, which recognizes the id
forces as well as the new organization, the ego, which is pitted against them.
He adds that this synthesis is based on Hartmann's conception of ego autonomy and on his related
elaborations of the structural approach (in which the idea of drive as pure force remains unmodified). As Gill
indicates, such a force must be confined by structure; Hartmann's achievement is to provide the required
structural model. This model envisions the formation of psychic structures which retain their integrity despite
crisis, conflict, and impulse. As these formations grow, they become increasingly independent of drive,
constituting bulwarks against impulse and guarantors of adaptation and social functioning. Thus Gill (1959p. 5)
proposes that
the introduction of the structural point of view [now] makes possible a view of personality functioning
which includes its steady, stable, ordinary, organized, enduring patterns of behavior and thinking.
With Brenman (1959, p. 182) he warns that unless 'we take seriously the ego as a structure, with genuine
relative autonomy' we 'approach the "seething cauldron" concept.'
In this manner everyday behaviour, with its consistency, reliability, and relative lack of intensity, is
explained as an achievement of autonomous ego structures in holding back an instinctual wilfulness and
abandon.
In contrast to the id, which refers to peremptory aspects of behavior, the ego refers to aspects of
behavior which are delayable, bring about delay, or are themselves products of delay, (Rapaport,
1959p. 5; his italics).
'The structural approach' in this setting no longer refers primarily to psycho-analytic explanations based on
id, ego, and superego relations. It has mainly come to refer to an emphasis on what Rapaport (1953p. 57) calls
'the control of structure over drive.' As he sees it (1951app. 233235)
1 Department of Psychiatry, Cowell Memorial Hospital, University of California.
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it is partly by the hierarchic repetition of this process of defense-structure formation that drives are
'tamed' into adult motives; and it is mostly the failure at one point or another of this taming process
that gives rise to neurotic, psychotic, or character disturbances.
In addition to such a failure in the domestication of drive, pathological states may be brought on by structural
deterioration, leading to the release of pent-up drives, as in 'psychoses, both functional and organic, and in
extreme reality situations.' Structures may be 'swept away by mounting drive tensions.' Thus maturity rests on the
capacity of structural formations to delay 'the congeries of immediately discharge-directed drives [which] is
conceptualized as the id.' The assumption here is that drives do not develop, only structures do.
Neutralization versus Maturation
Kris (1956) offers a careful application of this assumption to the process of gaining insight in the analytic
situation. He proposes that since the attempt to grasp interpretations may be libidinized or may be used to gain
independence from the analyst or may express self-love or self-hateor may, after all, be in the service of
resistance and defencethat the capacity for the development of genuine insight rests on the capacity to achieve
detachment from such motives, i.e., to neutralize them. This may be contrasted with the view that the capacity for
analytic insight is generated by these same motives, but at a higher level of development and integration (and
thus employing new means and new ends), as well as by the strengthening of other motives (growth or mastery
needs, 'healthy' narcissism). For Kris the key process is the neutralization, not the maturation, of the energies of
resistance and defence. This is the heart of contemporary ego theory: drives remain infantile; only the ego
develops. The original potency of drive may be weakened and it may be endlessly diverted and refined, but at
the ultimate levels of maturity it simply reaches neutrality (in the form of an all-purpose energy). This is the
ultimate accomplishment in the control of structure over drive, that is to say, in ego autonomy. Thus Kris
describes objective self-observation as an autonomous ego function. No motives are suggested which might
foster and enhance this function. Motives are discussed only as interferences with insight.
How far is this from conscious experience, in which the ego, as intellect and judgement, must free itself from
emotion, as represented by the id? Such naive experience, while officially transcended, may nevertheless lend
conviction to explanations based on neutralization and autonomy. Even Freud stated in The Ego and the
Id(1923p. 25) that
the ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains
the passions,
adding that
this falls in line with popular distinctions which we are all familiar with.
Yet The Ego and the Id is devoted to the all too easily overlooked unconscious ego and not to this familiar
reality ego (see below). Habits of thought generated by common sense may wield a continuing influence, as in
Anna Freud's (1945p. 144) comment that
all through childhood a maturation process is at work which, in the service of an increasing
knowledge and adaptation to reality, aims at perfecting [ego] functions, at rendering them more and
more objective and independent of the emotions until they can become as accurate and reliable as a
mechanical apparatus.
Similarly, Hartmann (1956p. 263) proposes that to attain a workable knowledge of objective reality the ego
must be
strong enough not to be impinged upon in its essential functions by the id, and strong enough also not
to exhaust itself in its struggles against the drives.
Erikson (1946pp. 46f) questions this view that the ego must be strengthened against and made independent of
the idthat the ego must become autonomous. He is critical of what he calls this 'trend in contemporary
conceptualization, ' using Anna Freud's comment to illustrate it. Erikson argues that mechanization and
independence of emotion characterize the impoverished ego rather than the healthy one, and that this mechanistic
perspective is more in line with 'the popular use of the word "ego", ' as in 'ego-bolstering'. He adds that
in the wake of therapeutic short cuts, this connotation can be seen to creep even into professional
discussions of the ego.
Hartmann (1939p. 94) is, of course, well aware of the risk that an emphasis on ego autonomy can lead to the
overly-independent
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ego becoming the model for normal functioning, noting that
the normal ego must be able to control, but it must also be able to must
(italics his). Likewise Rapaport (1958ap. 23) observes that the most autonomous ego is that of the
obsessional, being part of a pattern of loss of conviction, gullibility, rigidity of belief, and paralyzing doubt. To
avoid this danger of overvaluing inhibition and control the ego psychologists suggest that the efficient ego is
capable of giving up its autonomy and reversing the process of neutralization. The key conception used as a
counterpoise to autonomy is regression in the service of the ego, as exemplified by gratifying sexual functioning,
the capacity for untroubled sleep, and successful creative activity (Kris, 1950). Thus one consequence of the
assumption that the ego matures while drives do not is that genital sexuality is seen as regressive. Just as
maturity is equated with the attenuation of impulse, so acts of full psychic unity are characterized as regressive
(with the degree of maturity measured by the reversibility of the regression).
Kris's conception of the attainment of insight, although formulated on a highly sophisticated level, resembles
the common-sense view in which objectivity and unemotionality are equated. In relying on ego autonomy as
their basic explanatory device, the ego psychologists risk constructing a model of the impoverished ego. An
indication of how heavily contemporary ego psychology relies on the conception of autonomy is provided by
Gill and Brenman's (1959p. 169) assertion that
the central advance in the theory of psychoanalytic psychology in the past two decades has been the
concept of relative autonomy (Hartmann, Rapaport).
The Ego Pitted Against Drive
The cauldron has been replaced by the autonomous apparatuses, but what of the drives that without such
constraints would menace everyday functioning? In Rapaport's phrase (above) the ego is 'pitted against' drive,
with the possibility of successful adaptation hanging in the balance. Thus he (1958, pp. 13, 32) also speaks of
the ego apparatuses as 'guarantees against drive slavery', remarking that while man's behaviour is determined by
drives 'it is not totally at their mercy'. As an example of one way in which man's behaviour is not totally at the
mercy of drive, Rapaport points out that
the organism is endowed by evolution with apparatuses which prepare it for contact with its
environment.
Evolution is not seen as having had a similar effect on the drives; they are neither adaptive nor responsive to
the environment. The condition of maximum drive then means enslavement and loss of survival capacity.
In the same vein Anna Freud (1936p. 172) speaks of 'the ego's primary antagonism to instinctits dread of
the strength of the instincts, ' manifested by 'the innate hostility between the ego and the instincts, which is
indiscriminate, primary, and primitive.' Hartmann (1939p. 106) cites her view, agreeing that '"the ego's distrust
of the demands of instinctual drives" is the expression of a primary factor.' This is the ego that must avoid being
'impinged upon in its essential functions by the id' (Hartmann, above).
Loewald (1960) suggests that this view of drive is an early conception which does not take account of
Freud's later views, in which 'Freud moves away from an opposition between instinctual drives and ego.' As
Freud (1926bp. 201) put it in the final phase of his work:
there is no natural opposition between ego and id; they belong together, and under healthy conditions
cannot in practice be distinguished from each other.
This is to say that although the ego can be 'pitted against' drive, Freud no longer thought of this condition as
his basic reference state. Fenichel (1938p. 74) also lends his authority to this revison:
The ego is not by nature hostile to the instincts. Its organization serves, on the contrary, to heighten the
probability of instinctual satisfaction. Only in some situations do conflicts develop.
In this perspective, as enunciated by Loewald,
the ego is an organization which continues, much more than it is in opposition to, the inherent
tendencies of the drive-organization.
This means a changed view of drive, wherein
the id deals with and is a creature of 'adaptation' just as much as the egobut on a very different level
of organization.
The instincts are seen as taking on functions which in early psycho-analytic theory had been ascribed to the
nervous apparatus itself, like the
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urge to deal with the environment. To illustrate this, Loewald points out that 'Eros is itself an integrating
force;' synthesis and binding are no longer only ego functions.
Bibring (1941pp. 127f) put this changed view of drive in a nutshell by noting that in Freud's early theory the
source of an instinct was chosen as the basis for its characterization, whereas in Freud's later work the
instinctual aim became the basis for characterizing it:
Originally instinct was regarded as an energic tension arising from organic sources and automatically
directed towards an inherently determined aim; that aim was attained circuitously via an object But
the theory of the primal instincts was founded upon an essentially changed concept of instinct.
According to it, instinct was not a tension of energy which impinged upon the mental sphere, which
arose from an organic source and which aimed at removing a state of excitation in the organ from
which it originated. It was a directive or directed 'something' which guided the life processes in a
certain direction. The accent was no longer on the production of energy but only upon the function
determining a direction.
The distinction here is between drive as mobile, expansive, outlet-seeking pure energy, and drive as
persistent aim or purpose (which may utilize a variety of energies). In the early theory drive was clearly
separated from aim, being a contentless energy to which a variety of objects could be attached, as Loewald
summarizes it. The ego of this theory was the embodiment of aims and hence clearly distinguishable from drive
energies generated by somatic sources which could become attached to a wide range of aims. In the later theory
the distinction between apparatus and drive was not so sharply drawn:
It was no longer possible to maintain a strict contrast between a mental apparatus regulated by
principles, and instincts pressing in upon it from the outside (Bibring, 1941pp. 127f).
Loewald observes that 'it is unfortunate that the development of ego psychology has had to take place in
relative isolation from instinct theory, ' with the result that instinct theory has not taken account of Freud's later
conception of drive, and so 'has remained under the aegis of the antiquated stimulus-reflex-arc conceptual
model.' He attributes this apparently one-sided development to
the elaboration of the structural point of view in psychoanalytic theory [which] has brought about the
danger of isolating the different structures of the psychic apparatus from one another.
However, the impression that ego psychology has developed independently of drive theory may itself be an
illusion fostered by this isolating tendency inherent in structural thinking. Perhaps any ego psychology assumes
or implies a congruent 'id psychology'.
Nevertheless, Hartmann's id psychology is not prominent in his work. Glover (1961pp. 89f) takes note of
this, declaring that in Hartmann's monograph on ego psychology
above all one misses any systematic reference to the dynamic factors operating at each phase of
adaptation, in other words to the 'vicissitudes of instincts' (Triebe),
adding that
it would be possible to outline the processes of adaptation to instinctual stress in a more dynamic
idiom. Dr. Hartmann's outline is inevitably static, perhaps because of his patent preference for a
structural and mechanistic psychology.
In other words, it is not always clear what the ego must be autonomous from.
However, it can only be when drives are considered to be maladaptive forces that the autonomy of the ego
pitted against them becomes as urgent a conception as Rapaport and Gill suggest. What does autonomy represent
when the ego is seen as continuing rather than opposing drive aims? If the normal state is one in which 'the ego
remains bound up with the id and indistinguishable from it, ' as Freud formulated it in his major statement on the
relations between ego and id in Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety(1926ap. 97), then the development of ego
autonomy cannot be so immediately accepted as adaptive. Hence, rather than having left behind the 'antiquated'
conception of drive as pure energy and of the ego as pitted against it, ego psychology rests on this conception.
Hartmann's (1939pp. 46, 48f); (Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein, 1946p. 19) id psychology follows
Freud's early view that while animal instincts generally have survival value, the breakdown of instinctual
patterns in man has led to the split between an ego that attempts to preserve the organism, and drives which, cut
loose from their instinctual patterns, have become more random, more wilful (less manageable),
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and at odds with the ego. 'The instincts of the animals represent at the same time what we would call in man ego
functions and functions of the drives' (Hartmann, 1956p. 247). Ego and id differentiate out of instinct. This
differentiation 'provides us not only with a specific organ of adaptation, the ego, ' but drives also change,
becoming more 'estranged from reality' and so less adaptive (Hartmann, 1948p. 82). The ego attempts to
recreate the lost harmony by 'becoming as reliable as a mechanical apparatus' (Anna Freud, above)imposing
order on these 'autonomous' impulses. Integration is the task of the ego. Fragmented, separated from aims, drives
seek only a nonspecific satisfaction, a relief from tension. Here the ego's defining attribute is delay.
In Freud's later instinct theory the aim of drive is no longer simply 'discharge' and drive is no longer
synonymous with organic tension. Drive is now a 'function', to use Bibring's word, which moves us in a certain
direction, with this direction or aim defining the drive. Drives now impel towards something other than
indiscriminate discharge. For example, synthesis and integration are seen as inherent drive aims as Loewald
notes. The id is taken to be 'a creature of adaptation just as much as the ego, ' rather than as cut off from reality
and so barred from further modification by evolutionary pressures. However, in contemporary ego psychology,
as illustrated in the following section, the id still strictly refers to strivings towards immediate discharge, with
all other strivings attributed to the ego.
The Role of the Id in Contemporary Ego Psychology
A demonstration of the use by the ego psychologists of Freud's early conception of drive is provided by
Rapaport's debate with White (1960) over the latter's assertion that this conception of drive cannot account for
actual adaptive coping with reality. White (1963p. 93) maintains that the child
has an intrinsic interest in how to deal with things, a push towards mastery and independence that
does not borrow its energy from instinctual pressures [is not a product of neutralization] or from
rewards administered by the mother.
This is a fundamentally adaptive urge to use and master the environment; White calls it effectance.
As White analyses them, effectance motivations (drives towards manipulation, exploration, independence,
mastery) are neurogenic: they appear to arise from within the nervous system without visceral stimulation,
having nothing to do with hunger or deprivation. They push towards further stimulation, towards drive increase,
and away from drive reduction. Consequently, gratification of these motivations is not typically accompanied by
the experience of satiation.
Unlike effectance motivations, id drives are viscerogenic (in White's terminology), created by visceral
hungers which stimulate the nervous system to carry out consummatory activity until satiation is reached. Drive
means deprivation. Drive arousal means a state of irritation. Pleasure comes with drive reduction and with the
absence of drive. This viscerogenic model clearly fits the early view of drive as, in Bibring's words, 'a tension
of energy which impinged upon the mental sphere, which arose from an organic source and which aimed at
removing a state of excitation in the organ from which it originated.'
White (1963pp. 157160) himself questions the adequacy of the viscerogenic model to account for the later
(dual) instinct theory, since aggression is not viscerogenic. As Brenner (1955pp. 31f) points out: at first the
skeletal musculature was suggested as the source of the aggressive drive, but this idea has now been largely
abandoned and
it appears to be tacitly assumed that the somatic substrate for the aggressive drive is furnished by the
form and function of the nervous system.
To use White's term, aggression may be seen as neurogenic. It does not fit the model developed when a
relatively narrowly conceived libido was the only source of drive energy, in which damming-up (deprivation)
led to discharge (satiation). (With regard to libido itself, as discussed above, Freud's later conception envisions
a more continuously sustained kind of motivation, one less literally tied to the orgasm-reflex model. Even
Freud's early clinical formulations could not be wholly constrained by this model.)
Nevertheless Rapaport (1960bpp. 187f, 233, 255) fully subscribes to the viscerogenic model, going so far as
to say that any motive which is not appetitive and consummatory should not be considered a drive. This puts him
in the position
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of maintaining that White's phenomena (exploratory and mastery activity) 'cannot be explained in terms of any
instinctual drive, neutralized or otherwise, ' since such activity does not follow the pattern of arousal
discharge (or consummation)satiation. At the same time, given his concern with adaptive functioning,
Rapaport agrees that
we must find an adequate explanation [within psychoanalytic theory] for the observations he [White]
has systematized.
Rapaport's way of resolving this dilemma is to suggest that effectance behaviour is caused but not motivated,
following the logic of Hartmann's distinction between behaviour aroused by drive and behaviour aroused by
structures. Behaviour aroused by 'structures' intuitively suggests regulatory and reflexive activity not generated
by passion. Rapaport's appeal is to this connotation as well as, by analogy, to physiological processes that run
their course in the service of the growth and maintenance of the organism. Thus physical growth can cause
activity but is not a motivation. Rapaport (1960bpp. 223f) attempts to establish the same basis for psychic
growth. On this basis he proposes that one cause of effectance behaviour is the necessity for the ego to develop
and maintain structures, which 'prompts the organism to reach out for stimulation.' Structures require 'stimulus
nutriment'.
As an additional 'nonmotivational' cause of exploratory and manipulative behaviour, Rapaport turns to
Freud's early (1900) theory of consciousness, the only part of Freud's writings that Rapaport finds applicable.
His reference is to 'the distribution of a limited quantity of mental energy called attention cathexis' which
determines the focus of conscious attention (1900p. 228). The point of relevance is provided by propositions
concerning this distribution which state, essentially, that salient or novel stimuli compel attention. This appeal to
the function of 'attention' is another attempt to invoke organic determinants. In this instance the analogy is to
processes or capacities such as perceiving, thinking, and learning, although attention cathexis still implies an
ultimate derivation from motivational energies. Rapaport (1900p. 230) takes note of this problem, indicating
that 'the origin of attention cathexes is not touched on in these propositions [of Freud's], ' suggesting that such
energy must be either primary ego energy or neutralized energy. Since Rapaport and White agree that effectance
behaviour is not based on neutralized energy, this leaves 'primary ego energy' as the energic basis of effectance.
In one sense this concept is another reference to the organ analogy, being the simple assumption that the
existence of a function presumes the energy to carry it out. But if the concept of primary ego energy is carried
beyond this level it would seem to reintroduce motivational causes and thus to elude Rapaport's purpose.
Rapaport's efforts illustrate the ego psychologist's commitment to Freud's early conception of drive. He tries
to retain this viscerogenic model by narrowing the meaning of 'motivation' to fit the model. In this he is
following the general practice in ego psychology of limiting id functioning to blind organic discharge processes,
then ascribing to the ego all other forms of psychic activity. However, when libidinal drives were conceived
more broadly, including an urge to deal with the environment and forces towards social cohesion, the damming-
up and discharge model was no longer sufficient. This became all the more true with the establishment of
aggression as a drive, with its possible neurogenic source. As noted at the start of this paper, it is the early view
of drive as violent, spasmodic, and blind (in other words, as appetitive and consummatory) that suggests the
seething cauldron and makes it difficult to account for ordinary sustained activity. The concepts of neutralization
and autonomy, intended to solve the cauldron problem while retaining the viscerogenic view of drive, turn out to
be not applicable to at least one kind of sustained adaptive activitythat based on urges towards growth and
mastery. As White (1963p. 69) concludes:
The findings we have examined from research on child development seem to require an abundance of
such energy from the very beginning [of life],
thus ruling out the possibility of prior neutralization. This is in agreement with Rapaport's position, on other
grounds, that effectance behaviour is not a consequence of neutralization.
The Ego as an Organ
Rapaport's efforts to account for exploratory and mastery activity also illustrate the preference for organic
analogies in ego psychology. At the centre of his considerations is Hartmann's assumption that in man the drives
are estranged from the external world, and thus 'the guarantee,
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the organ, of adaptedness as well as adaptation is the ego' (Rapaport, 1956pp. 10f). 'Adaptation' is reminiscent
of 'self-preservation'the ego instinct of early psycho-analytic theory. This parallel is to be expected since use
of the conception of drive as blind energy requires the ego to bear the responsibility for survival. The problem
for Hartmann was to assign this responsibility to the ego without allowing for the re-introduction of the ego
drives. As the White-Rapaport debate shows, any conception of ego drives, such as White's effectance
motivation (or Hendrick's, 1942pp. 40f, 'instinct to master') violates the viscerogenic view of drive.
Hartmann's solution rests on an appeal to the organ analogy, on rendering the ego as an organ with a function
rather than as a representation of a drive with an aim.
There can be no more clear-cut structural distinction than that implied in the organ ego, a construction
suggestive of the topographic model and the associated hope of establishing an anatomy of the psyche. The
structural distinction itself is made into a causal principle. Can a functional distinction between adaptive or
neurogenic motives versus deficit or viscerogenic motives be turned into a structural distinction between an
organ and its function?
Glover (1961p. 88), critical of Hartmann's 'preference for a structural and mechanistic psychology, ' writes:
Why, we may ask, use a static structural image for activities that are best described dynamically and
economically and subdivided in chronological sequence? And speaking of terminology, why use the
term 'ego apparatuses' as Dr. Hartmann does to describe processes and functions?
What is an apparatus and how can it cause behaviour? When the 'apparatuses' replaced the 'cauldron', drive
was still taken to be pure force, but it was seen as activating apparatuses by which it was channelled and
distilled. In a discussion of the ego apparatuses of primary autonomy, Rapaport (1960ap. 55) proposes that
they are part and parcel of the apparatus which executes drive actions: they are the only means of
action the organism has.
This clearly states the position that drive exists only as a force which must be harnessed by structures. This
fits the picture of an organ system: an apparatus activated by energy. But Rapaport's treatment of effectance
indicates that the ego apparatuses themselves are thought of as generating urges towards growth and mastery.
How far can the conception of apparatuses causing such behaviour be carried before the organ metaphor breaks
down and these apparatuses again take on the character of drives?
One may ask, less rhetorically, how these apparatuses are independently energized. In his discussion of the
inborn apparatuses Rapaport (1960a) gives full recognition to the fact that the primary and autonomous nature of
these ego apparatuses requires
first, that drives only trigger their function and do not determine their course; second, that they can and
do function even when they do not serve the gratification of a specific drive.
However, he adds that
the problem of the energy supply of these apparatuses (when they are not triggered by drives) has not
so far been satisfactorily solved. Attempted solutions either [1] attribute drives (or partial drives)
to apparatuses, or [2] consider apparatuses as sources of (neutral) ego energy, or [3] assume that the
energy they use is neutralized drive energy at the disposal of the ego.
The first solution, that of attributing drives to apparatuses, appears to be a return to the idea of ego drives, the
conception which the organic framework is designed to avoid. As for the second solution, it is difficult to assess
the implications of neutral energy for the whole conception of psychic energy and the economic approach. It is
no longer motivational (Gill, 1963p. 13, calls it 'neutral nonmotivational energy') and so indicates an as yet
unspecified departure from the use of psychic energy to represent motive force. Much of White's argument is
directed against the last solutionthat primary and autonomous ego apparatuses are activated by neutralized
energy. Rapaport agrees that coping and mastery are not products of transformed visceral motives. Such urges to
do and to learn how to do (as Hendrick describes the instinct to master) do not appear derivative and are
present from the beginning of life. Thus the 'ego apparatuses', at least in their function as independent
nonmotivational causes of behaviour, have yet to achieve conceptual status beyond that of a terminological
device.
These quasi-physiological devices reflect the belief that to render psycho-analytic theory in impersonal, non-
purposive terms is to make the theory more objective (much like the idea that
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objectivity itself means independence from drive). Sutherland (1963pp. 112f) notes that
one of the main features in ego psychology seems to be a need to formulate theories in terms that are
thought to be more appropriate to science, or more accurately, to other scientists.
He goes on to warn that 'the data of psycho-analysis do not lend themselves to too much depersonalization.'
This conceptual style derives from Freud's early attempts in his metapsychology to emulate the physics and
physicsoriented physiology of his day. Such a 'physicalistic' model becomes possible where drive is seen as
pure force and 'defence' is seen as structure in an almost material sense. In addition, such a model is only
possible where the underlying clinical view permits a clear distinction between drive and defence. For
defences to be thought of as structures, apparatuses, or organs, they must be considered to be relatively free of
drive characteristics. It must also be possible to see their aims as the aims of a reality ego, an independent agent
of objective self-interest, shaped by the forces of evolution and adaptation.
Drive as Infantile
So far I have tried to show that the structural approach rests on the assumption that drive does not develop;
that as long as it retains its potency it remains maladaptive. Adaptation is then seen as a structural achievement
in, as Rapaport puts it, the 'taming' of 'the beasts that struggle down under somewhere.' 'Maladaptive' means
'infantile', and although this has been implicit in the foregoing, a clinical speculation by Rapaport can serve to
illustrate this remaining aspect of the id in ego psychology:
Rapaport (1951bp. 255) offers as 'telling evidence' for autonomy, the observation that 'altruistic' and anti-
violence motivation 'need not be lost, and mostly is not lost, in successful analyses.' To say that altruism can
withstand analysis is to assume that instinctual drive is sadistic unless interfered with, and that reaction
formations are necessary to create altruism. These reaction formations are then assumed to be endangered by
analysis to the degree that they have not achieved autonomy from drive. While I (Apfelbaum, 1962), (1965)
have elsewhere discussed some of the other issues raised by this case-in-point of Rapaport's, the drive
conception that it reveals is relevant here. As Loewald's discussion indicates, this is an early view of drive,
unmodified by Eros. Thus in 1921 Freud could say that
love alone acts as the civilizing factor in the sense that it brings a change from egoism to altruism
(1921p. 103).
By 1930 he came close to seeing the ego as required to defend against altruism in the service of self-interest:
The development of the individual seems to us to be a product of the interaction between two urges,
the urge towards happiness, which we usually call 'egoistic', and the urge toward union with others in
the community, which we call 'altruistic' (1930p. 140).
Later in the same passage Freud describes this as a conflict between ego and object cathexes.
In much of Freud's later work infantile drives are seen as remaining so only as a consequence of being
warded off and preserved in a state of developmental arrest. Brenner (1957p. 44) summarizes the 'final' phase
of Freud's formulations of repression:
The adult ego represses something only to the extent that, and only in those areas where, it is still
infantile as a consequence of infantile repression, or other similar infantile defenses.
This is in contrast to the assumption on which the early psycho-analytic model was based, that the inimical
nature of drive was the cause rather than the consequence of repression. The last step came in 1926 with the
abandonment of the toxic theory of drive in Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. It had been believed that the
accumulation of drive was in itself pathological; now it was assumed that drive becomes pathological only
when repudiated by the ego or superego as a consequence of anxiety arousal.
To return to Rapaport's example: 'altruism' describes a complex outcome and can have a variety of sources.
His view that altruism can survive analysis understates the case; more commonly patients become altruistic who
could not be so before (or who could be so only under certain circumstances). This observation alone weakens
the case for autonomy since it suggests that altruism can be non-defensive. If altruism is not necessarily a
product of defence or control, then this in turn suggests that drives develop, since infantile drives are not
altruistic. In any case the principle of drive maturation is well established in the main body of psycho-analytic
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theory, being intrinsic to the idea of psychosexual development. It finds explicit expression in Bibring's (1937)
proposition that drives have a 'developmental tension'.
Ego and Instinct in Erikson's Work
Significantly, when ego psychology leaves the narrower metapsychological level of Hartmann and Rapaport
the older conception of drive as blind psychic energy disappears, and with it also goes the necessity for
structures to become autonomous from this energy in order to contain and harness it. Thus, nothing in Erikson's
work corresponds to a 'structural' disposition to act, as opposed to action provoked by the energy of impulse.
He finds no inevitable opposition between ego and instinct and consequently makes no appeal to the idea of ego
autonomy. He is explicit in his opposition to the view that drives must be 'tamed':
It is meaningless to speak of a human child as if it were an animal in the process of domestication; or
of his instincts as set patterns encroached upon or molded by the autocratic environment. Man's
'inborn' instincts are drive fragments to be assembled, given meaning, and organized during a
prolonged childhood by methods of child training and schooling which vary from culture to culture
and are determined by tradition (1963p. 95).
Clearly this must be the ego that 'continues' the drives and not the ego whose most prominent capacity is
delay. The inseparability of drive and ego in Erikson's perspective is reflected by his comment that:
Ultimately, children become neurotic not from frustration, but from the lack or loss of societal
meaning in these frustrations (1963pp. 249f).
Nevertheless Rapaport (1956p. 22) attempts to claim Erikson for the structural theory by suggesting that
Erikson's 'organ modes' (of libidinal expression) are examples of autonomous ego functions, and that Erikson's
conception of estrangement of the modes from their zones of origin parallels Hartmann's treatment of ego-id
differentiation. Rapaport thinks of the 'zones' as remaining close to libido theory, representing the somatic
sources of drive energy, with 'modes' representing successive stages in corresponding ego development.
However, a review of these modes quickly reveals their prominent drive characteristics, embodying impulses to
take, get, hold on to, push, grab, versus get rid of, throw, let go, push away, eliminate. And when these modes of
action become estranged from their corresponding zones, taking on more exclusively the character of
incorporation or intrusion, retention or elimination, they become more, rather than less, like drives. To use
Rapaport's own distinction, they appear more peremptory than delaying. The parallel with Freud's conception
of the fusion and defusion of sexual and aggressive drives is closer than the parallel with ego-id differentiation.
Erikson occasionally explicitly equates organ modes and aggression; in one remark he refers to 'patterns of
aggressive approach (organ modes)' (1963p. 405). These patterns of aggressive approach could only be related
to ego functioning if Freud's view of aggression as an ego instinct were revived. However, the emphasis in
Hartmann's ego psychology on the ego as a structure and on drive as viscerogenic precludes this parallel. The
difficulty here is that Erikson consistently transcends any distinction between ego and drive.
Even Erikson's almost exclusive concern with the synthetic function does not easily lend itself to structural
distinctions. This is perhaps the cardinal ego function; yet it is given an unmistakably peremptory character in
Erikson's treatment, where it comes close to representing an urge towards growth or mastery. He remarks that
the need to synthesize can look like 'an especially powerful manifestation of naked instinct' (1963pp. 235, 240).
When Erikson (1943p. 292) speaks of the child's 'insatiable desire for independence, mastery, and investigation'
he is talking about the same phenomena as White is, and clearly without sharing Rapaport's position that such
activity is 'non-motivational'. He makes no effort to avoid the possibility of neurogenic or adaptive drives.
When he refers to man's instincts as 'drive fragments' he has in mind the breakdown of instinctual patterns in
man, just as Hartmann does, but where for Hartmann such fragments are blind and wilfuleven opposed to the
synthesis sought by the egofor Erikson these fragments are themselves synthesis-seeking.
The Structural Perspective
By electing to preserve the anti-ego drives of early psycho-analytic theory, the ego psychologists have
thrown the whole burden of responsibility for adaptation on the ego. By asserting the primacy of maladaptive
drives in the motivational hierarchy, they can establish the primacy of the ego in everyday functioning. If
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drives endanger adaptation and stability, then it appears self-evident that the ego must be responsible for
everyday behaviour. If, as well, the ego psychologists hold to Freud's final conclusion that there are no ego
drives, then the necessity for structural conceptions is also self-evident. However, when Freud discarded the
ego drives he was moving away from his assumption of an inevitable antagonism between ego and id. He was
affirming the close interdependence of ego and id by asserting that
if the ego remains bound up with the id and indistinguishable from it, then it displays its strength.
To the ego psychologists, if the ego is bound up with the id this means 'drive slavery', and so in holding to
Freud's conclusion that there are no ego drives, they are left with the problem of how to account for ego strength.
This is to say that if the ego is pitted against drive and is to 'display its strength' not when it is bound up with the
id but when it is autonomous from it, but if at the same time the id is the source of all drives, then a conceptual
device such as the idea 'of structure' is required to account for ego functions.
Even if these conditions were accepted, this solution depends on how effectively the ego psychologists can
demonstrate that 'structure' is not merely a terminological solution that reintroduces the old ego drives in a new
form. I have elsewhere (Apfelbaum, 1962) tried to show that it may not be possible to keep the early view of
drive as inimical to the ego while also assigning greater motive power to the ego (although my discussion at that
time would have benefitted from the recognition that the ego psychologists have created the problem their
conceptions are designed to solve by making reality adaptation their focus of concern at the same time that they
take the view that drives are maladaptive.)
The Absence of the Superego from Ego Psychology
So far this discussion has followed the practice of contemporary structural theorists in treating only the
relations between ego and id. Yet this is to overlook the function of the superego (and of internal objects) in the
control, modification, and guidance of impulse. To consider effective ego control without reference to the
assimilated benevolent superego behind it is to neglect the dynamic forces which make such control possible.
This fosters the tendency to rely instead on the organ analogy to supply the causal principle behind ego control.
To set aside the superego makes the case for ego autonomy more compelling by implying that without ego
structures nothing would be interposed between impulse and act.
The superego and its precursors are largely absent from the writings of Hartmann, Rapaport, and Gill. I have
discussed this at greater length previously (Apfelbaum, 1965), although and additional example has since
appeared: in his monograph on the structural approach Gill (1963) makes only passing reference to the
superego, stating in his Introduction that he 'does not deal much with the superego, the third of the structural
systems.' This de-emphasis, first remarked on by Zetzel (1956a), is seldom so explicitly noted. In an
unpublished manuscript Rapaport (1958b) acknowledges that the superego is 'neglected' theoretically, indicating
that, at least in his terms, regarding
guilt and the consequences of unconscious guilt, of these we have only clinical, but no general
theoretical conception.
In this same paper Rapaport's emphasis on the ego is manifested by his questioning Freud's formulation that
'repression is the work of the superego.' He also objects to looking upon the superego as 'observing, judging,
and punishing the ego, ' since observation and judgment are ego functions. He prefers to think of observing and
judging, as well as repression, as ego capacities which can be prompted by the superego.
However Rapaport (1956p. 3) himself took note of the fact that
the structural concept of the ego was born in the struggle with the unconscious sense of guilt and as a
by-product of the structural conception of the superego.
The ego and id had been present in Freud's thought from the beginning, but it was only when he hit upon the
conception of the superego that the psychic structures fell into place for him and the structural approach
crystallized. The subordinate position of the ego to the superego in Freud's ego psychology has, nevertheless,
been used by the ego psychologists to justify the present-day reversal of emphasis, their logic being that since
Freud first studied the id and then the superego, it is now following in his footsteps to move on to the study of
the ego (this is discussed more fully below).
The omission of the superego on the level of formal theorizing by Hartmann, Rapaport, and
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Gill further illustrates the point that the structural approach, as they have developed it, no longer refers to the
study of the interrelations of id, ego, and superego, but to formulations having to do with 'the control of structure
over drive.' To put this another way, the structural approach now refers to the construction of a psycho-analytic
model which relies wholly on explanation in terms of energy and structure. A dynamic conception such as the
superego is not congenial to this model since it cannot be rendered in these terms.
The Dynamic Perspective
When the superego is given prominence, as in the work of Melanie Klein, and of Erikson, economic and
structural formulations are subordinated to dynamic ones. To take Klein's system first: drive and defence are
seen mainly as immediate expressions of unconscious fantasies and relations with internal objects. Zetzel
(1956b) attempts to draw the contrast as sharply as possible between contemporary ego psychology and
Kleinian theory, showing, in the process, some of the consequences for ego psychology of minimization of the
superego: those who emphasize the role of superego formation see the nature of the ego as determined at all
times by its relations with internal and external objects; it cannot be studied in isolation. Structural distinctions
are relatively fluid, with closeness to unconscious sources seen as a sign of ego maturity. By contrast, the ego
psychologists stress relative separation of the ego from unconscious sources as a sign of ego maturity; the
neutralization of instinctual energy assumes divorcement from unconscious fantasy. Maturity is seen as a move
away from unconscious fantasy and the superego, rather than towards freer participation in more benign
fantasies and closer relations with a more benevolent, more fully assimilated superego. The ego is thought of as
primarily a controlling and neutralizing structure, built by gradual accretion, its structural soundness critical in
determining its capacity to withstand re-exposure to unconscious sources in treatment. Thus the more the
emphasis on structure, the greater the concern with structural soundness, that is, with ego weakness and ego
defect. Analysis of precarious defences is dangerous since weakening of structure means eruption of impulse.
Those working within Klein's perspective are strikingly without such a sense of navigating treacherous currents.
Zetzel notes that the trial analysis and the need to assess ego strength are absent from the Kleinian approach; ego
maturity is irrelevant. The less the emphasis on structure, the more fluid and accessible to influence the psychic
organization is seen to be. The crucial point here is that despite their vision of a psyche in dynamic equilibrium,
concern over the seething cauldron of clashing drives does not touch Kleinian theorists, impressed as they are
with the drive-modifying function of the superego (or, more precisely, of the unassimilated introjects which are
its precursors).
The same may be said of Erikson and, with Klein, his views may be contrasted with those of the ego
psychologists. His work is another 'superego psychology'; his position regarding the drives, as considered
above, is that 'tradition and conscience must organize them' (1963p. 95). As is true for Klein, Erikson's concern
with unconscious fantasy and relations with internal objects has the effect of obviating reliance on purely
structural distinctions. The inference suggests itself that the structural and dynamic approaches, while not
incompatible when considered in the abstract, tend to be negatively correlated in actual theory construction;
emphasis on one is likely to eliminate the other. Thus Erikson makes it a point to dispute the basic proposition
of the structural approachthat the ego must gain autonomy, i.e., that distance from unconscious sources is
required for stability. This is illustrated by his concern to correct the view that ego functions should be
'independent of the emotions' and 'as accurate and reliable as a mechanical apparatus' (see above). His
structural conceptions are so interpenetrating that the organ modes which direct impulse are themselves
impulses, and drives, far from being pitted against the ego, are seen as fragments in search of a synthesis. (To
call Erikson's work an ego psychology only further confounds structural distinctions.)
For Rapaport and Gill such a dynamic equilibrium suggests incessant struggle and conflictthe ever-
seething cauldron. As they see it, structures must be built to tame and harness dynamic forces. These structures
must develop into independent, autonomous, organ-like apparatuses in order 'to prevent their being swept away
by mounting drive tensions' (to use Rapaport's phrase). A single proposition which incisively captures the
dynamic relationships which transcend such a structural model is Winnicott's (1958) formula that 'an id impulse
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either disrupts a weak ego or else strengthens a strong one.'
The Reality Ego and the Defence Ego
In this discussion ego psychology has been seen as retrogressive, both in its emphasis on ego rather than
superego control and in its basic conception of drive. On the other hand, the ego psychologists see their work as
a progressive extension of Freud's thoughtas a rounding out of psycho-analytic theory in the areas that time
had not permitted Freud to reach. Their interpretation of the phases of Freud's work suggests an essentially
straightforward progression towards a culmination in ego psychology. A strikingly different conception of the
development of Freud's work, for which Jones can be taken as the spokesman, finds it to be discontinuous,
forming two relatively complete theories, the later theory being essentially incompatible with the earlier one.
The first view is essential to the ego psychologists in establishing the link between Freud's work and their
own, particularly in making their focus of interest pertinent to his. According to this view, it was primarily
expediency which dictated the change in the focus of Freud's work, from drive in the early phase to defence in
the later phase. The supposition here is that the early phase had to be taken up with the study of the Unconscious
and of the drives; only when this analysis of the id was well under way could Freud then turn to the study of the
ego. Thus Hartmann (1950p. 113) declares that
as early as in the nineties Freud speaks of an ego. However, the closer elaboration of this part
of his work had to be postponed.
In another comment (1952p. 156) he sees the role of the ego in Freud's work 'at times even completely
submerged under the impact of the theory of the instincts 'during the id analysis period. Strachey (1961p. 8)
lends his authority to this view, suggesting that in the early phase of Freud's work 'his interest was concentrated
on his investigations of the unconscious and its instincts' so that the closer examination of repressive forces 'was
left to the future' and 'it was enough for the moment to give them the inclusive name of "the ego".' Similarly,
Rapaport (1951c) says that as of 1916
the ego appears as yet only as a shibboleth and rather empty form a term which has no definition,
which stands for repressive functions, for some regard for reality, and for some narcissistic issues.
Rapaport (1951c) claims that there are indications in the Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis (1916)
that Freud saw his conception of the ego as incomplete and intended to study it further. Hence, with Hartmann,
Kris, Gill, and others, Rapaport is able to speak of a gradually cumulative interest in the ego on Freud's part
over a thirty-year period, from its eclipse in the id analysis phase to its reaffirmation in the ego analysis phase.
The evolution of psycho-analytic theory is thus seen as a linear progression leading up to the post-Freudian
emphasis on the ego of Hartmann and his colleagues.
This view sharply contrasts with Jones's (1957p. 265) statement that:
When Freud wrote his important metapsychological essays in the Spring of 1915 he felt he had
completed his life work, and that any further contributions he might make would be of a subordinate
and merely complementary order. His followers would doubtless have taken a similar view at that
time. Had his work come to an end then we should have possessed a well-rounded account of
psychoanalysis in what might be called its classical form, and it would not have been easy to predict
its future development at the hands of his successors. There was not the slightest reason to expect that
in another few years Freud would have produced some revolutionary conceptions which necessarily
had the effect of extensively remodelling both the theory and the practice of psycho-analysis.
So Freud's work at that time, according to Jones, was neither fragmentary nor one-sided.
How is this difference in historical perspective to be accounted for? To clarify these two views a distinction
must be drawn between two conceptions of the ego: what may be called the 'reality ego' versus the 'defence
ego'. The 'reality ego' emphasizes the ego's temporizing, compromising functionas a busy mediator between
the demands of reality and of the drives. The 'defence ego' is a more active principle, having superordinate
goals of its own, before which both reality and the drives must yield. The ego psychologists think of the reality
ego as Freud's basic conception throughout his work. The opposing view is that while the reality ego was an
integral part of Freud's early model, it was supplanted in his later model by the defence ego.
The view that Freud had considered his early
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theory to be incomplete conceives of Freud as having at first been occupied by the ego's attempt to cope with
reality, since the pathogenic factor was believed to be a traumatic reality event. When he discovered the trauma
to be a fantasy (noted by him in 1897) generated by the childhood effects of instinct, Freud is then seen as
turning away from the ego and reality to the investigation of instinct. As a consequence, according to Rapaport
(1959p. 7),
reality experience lost its central position in the theory, and only slowly regained it in the course of
the next thirty years [18971927].
The discovery of the seduction-trauma fantasy can thus appear to have forced Freud to interrupt and set aside
his study of the ego in order to devote himself to an intensive investigation of the vicissitudes of instinct.
It only becomes possible to conceive of studying drive without simultaneously studying the ego, when the ego
is seen as a separate structure. When drive and defence are seen as a functional unity, it is less easy to conceive
of developing conceptions of one without immediately raising implications for the other.
The idea that Freud neglected the study of the ego during the id analysis phase of his work arises chiefly from
the fact that Freud had little to say about the ego during this period. But the crucial point here is that for psycho-
analytic theory in what Jones calls 'its classical form', the ego could be seen as sufficiently accounted for
while hardly considered. During the id analysis phase, the repudiation of drive was taken to be a simple
consequence of the nature of drive as inimical to self-control and self-esteem. The civilized ego could easily be
seen as offended and endangered by its instinctual core. This common-sense ego was essential to 'id
psychology', though seldom mentioned, since knowledge of it was felt to be available to all, and not, properly
speaking, a part of psycho-analysis. As Waelder (1962, pp. 177f) observes, the ego was originally identified
with the conscious and the preconscious, with conscious strivingsself-preservation, interests, moral concerns
and
as long as this was taken for granted, psycho-analysis, as the psychology of the unconscious, had
indeed little reason to pay attention to it; it could safely assume that it was already known to
commonsense psychology.
It might be said that in this early phase of the theory, repression, and the repressed, were characteristically
thought of as revealed rather than as needing to be explained. (What was to be explained was the symptom.) It
was enough to discover the impulse hidden in the symptom or slip; the strength of the need, and of the will, to
effect repression was typically accepted as self-evident.
This reality ego of 'reason and common sense which we are all familiar with' had been carried over
unchanged from Freud's original pre-analytic formulations into the succeeding id analysis period. In the pre-
analytic period, the ego was taken by Freud as a phenomenological given, as the 'self'. The ego's resistance to
instinct was taken for granted, being seen as much like the natural resistance of a host organism to invading
organisms. The instincts were assumed to conflict in a very immediate way with pride, self-respect, even
'noblemindedness', and, above all, with the demands of objective reality, that is, with the need to act and feel
appropriately and properly. The self had to be preserved against the instincts whose only aim was to preserve
the species, at whatever cost to the individual. For this reason self-preservation was the basic ego motive.
Although in the following id analysis period the conception of pathogenesis changed radically, from reality
event to instinctual pressure, the ego reacted to instinct much as it had to the traumatic event. The basic
conceptual model remained unchanged: both the traumatic event (of the pre-analytic period) and instinctual
impulse (of the subsequent id analysis period) represented onslaughts on the ego. Repression was understood to
be an inevitable consequence of the inimical nature of impulse whether this impulse was generated by external
traumatic stimulation or internal instinctual cravings. This is to say that in both stages of Freud's thought a
primary and primitive antagonism between ego and impulse was taken as self-evident.
To overlook the dependence of early psycho-analytic theory on this conception of the reality ego is to
underrate the scope of the change in Freud's ego concept which took place in the third (final) phase of his work:
in the twenties Freud came to recognize that the ego is not so realistic and that, correspondingly, drives are not
necessarily so maladaptive. He recognized more fully that maladaptive drives are partly a manifestation of
developmental arrest and defensive distortion, discovering deeper ego and superego forces behind the
seemingly elemental drives of the id analysis period. Just as Freud began to see
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anxiety as a symptom of conflict rather than of dammed-up instinct, so his final view of repression, as
summarized by Brenner, was that the adult ego represses something only to the extent that it is still infantile as a
result of having been previously warded-off. The repressing force itself could no longer be taken for granted as
a readily understandable attempt to maintain self-control and self-esteem in the face of eruptions of antisocial
instincts. The repressing force was now discovered to be heavily implicated in the condition of the instincts
themselves and now had to share the responsibility for pathology. Hence this phase may be seen to mark the
eclipse of the reality ego, with the appearance of the defence ego that repudiates drive, not necessarily because
drives as such are intolerable, but as a consequence of what was then called unconscious guilt and self-
destructiveness. As noted above, Freud conceptualized this ego to clarify the nature of the superego,
unconscious guilt, and the negative therapeutic reaction. This is the ego whose effects were subtle enough for
their full significance to have eluded Freud during the early phases of his work, the ego to which Sterba
(1951pp. 17f) refers when he says:
It has been my experience that it is a most difficult task to teach students to pay attention to the ego.
Even the most experienced analyst must constantly exercise self-discipline in order to remain aware
of the ego's defensive measures in therapy.
Only this ego could have been overlooked in what Jones called a well-rounded account of psycho-analysis
in its classical form. This concept has still proved elusive, as Sterba goes on to observe:
It is my impression that this newest addition to our science [the defense ego] has not been sufficiently
recognized and that it has not yet [as of 1951] penetrated the thinking and the therapeutic technique of
most analysts.
In short, it can be said that to overlook the importance of the reality ego in Freud's early work is also to
overlook the importance of the defence ego in his later work. Only in this way can Freud's work be seen as a
progressive development of a basically unchanged model of the mind.
Freud's Ego Psychology
Consistently enough, Rapaport and his coworkers find a renaissance of the reality ego in Freud's final theory.
As indicated above, they see Freud's ego concept in the id analysis period as neglected and as awaiting further
development. For them, Freud's subsequent ego analysis period takes up the ego where he left it off, constituting
a reaffirmation (rather than an eclipse) of the reality ego. They recognize The Ego and the Id(1923) as a low
point for the reality ego,
But [Rapaport, 1956pp. 3f, argues] by the time Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety was published,
this had changed radically. The ego appears as an independent agent of great power and authority. It
represses the instinctual impulses and has a rich equipment for defending itself against them; namely
the mechanisms of defense and the warning signals. How was this change accounted for? The ego,
according to this theory, acts under the influence of external reality. It is first of all the role of external
reality that has changed. The instinctual danger is reduced to the reality danger that would be met,
were the instinctual demands acted on [object loss, loss of love, castration, etc.] In these realities
the ego has a powerful ally against the instincts and, far from being at their mercy, appears as a
structure equipped to anticipate the mounting demand of the instinct and the consequent reality danger.
In this Rapaport finds a herald of the ego as organ of adaptation, the reality ego of Hartmann's system. On the
contrary, it can be argued that up to the twenties the ego was nothing but an independent agent of external
reality, an 'organ' of the self-preservation instinct, that is, of adaptation. The subsequent ego of Freud's ego
psychology was, if anything, an organ of pathologyconceptualized to take fuller account of conflict instigated
from the side of the repressing forces. The relevance of external reality to defence was less clear than it had
once been. As Rapaport himself goes on to point out in the same (1956) paper, the major effect of both The Ego
and the Id and Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety was to centre attention on ego defences and on the ego's
origin in identification, that is, on the ego that had been hitherto overlooked. Rapaport also admits that 'the ego's
relation to reality, which was implicit to both [books] remained in the background.'
There can be no doubt that in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety Freud re-affirmed the strength of the ego,
but as a part of the id, not as an independent agent. Here the ego is said to display its strength when 'bound up'
with the
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id. This is in direct contrast to the ego in its 'classical' form; the reality ego was innately antagonistic to the
drives, existing as a distinct structure with its own self-preservative energies. It can serve to clarify the nature
of this change in Freud's view of the ego to trace the way he moved, on the level of formal theory, from the
conception of the ego as an independent agent to the conception of the ego as bound up with the id.
Originally Freud signified the independent character of the ego by assigning it independent instinctual energy
in the form of the instinct of self-preservation. The innate antagonism between ego and id was then expressed as
an opposition between the self-preservative instinct and the sex instinct. The first formal change in this model
appeared in 1914 when, with the introduction of the concept of narcissism, Freud came to see the ego as a
libidinal object and self-preservation as a libidinal motive. This reflected growing experience with narcissistic
inaccessibility as one kind of intractable resistance to recovery. Here the weakness of the ego as a therapeutic
ally suggested that the ego, subverted by narcissistic cathexis, was basically in league with libido rather than
innately opposed to it. This might be called the first set-back for the reality ego.
However, still determined to retain the primary and independent status of the ego, Freud held to the idea of
an ego instinct, temporarily simply calling it 'self-interest.' In 1915 Freud decided that aggression (then 'hate')
was a primary non-libidinal component of the ego instincts. Aggression was not yet seen as instinctual but as a
property of the ego instincts, expressed when the ego is threatened. When self-destructive impulses became
salient as another kind of intractable resistance to recovery (the negative therapeutic reaction and the need for
punishment), Freud was persuaded that aggression is not basically ego protective. By the time of The Ego and
the Id Freud had given up the idea of an independent reality ego; he no longer believed that the purposes of
realistic self-interest have the power of instinct. Such purposes were too easily subverted by narcissism and by
guilt. Ego motives were thereafter taken to be derivative.
This step was followed by a heavy emphasis on the helplessness of the ego in the analytic literature. To
correct this, Freud reiterated in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety that he had conceived of the ego as having
great power over the id (which, in view of the synergistic rather than antagonistic relation between them, would
not be to deny that the id also has great power over the ego). This, after all, was the import of The Ego and the
Id. It was the ego as an agent of reality that had been shown to be dramatically weak. Some of the
misunderstanding was probably due to the earlier habit of thought in which the ego was still seen as a reality
agent, as the guarantor of objective self-interest. Perhaps it could even be said, to state the case in its most
extreme form, that it was now recognized that the drives constituted ultimately ineradicable forces towards 'self-
interest' (in the sense of further development), whereas the ego, when it was estranged from the id, appeared as
the agent of self-restriction and developmental arrest. Freud (1940p. 148) could now say: 'The power of the id
expresses the true purpose of the individual organism's life.'
Thus Freud was concerned to correct the impression that in dropping his conception of the independent
reality ego he was stressing ego weakness. Rather, he was stressing the conception of the ego as part of the id
(which can be a weakness or a strength, in the sense that an id impulse strengthens a strong ego and weakens a
weak one.)
It should be noted that Freud used 'ego' in both senses in The Ego and the Id, but at the same time he left little
doubt which was to be his systematic usage: It is here that he says (1923p. 25) that 'the ego represents what may
be called reason and common sense' in line with 'popular distinctions', yet he makes it clear that this ego of
common sense is not his concern (p. 19):
We should like to learn more about the ego, now that we know that it, too, can be unconscious in the
proper sense of the word.
To consider an additional detail in Rapaport's argument: he maintains that Freud's attribution of the 'warning
signals' to the ego is evidence for what he sees as the radical change in Freud's ego concept, establishing it as
'an independent agent of great power and authority'. Yet it may be argued that the notion of an anxiety signal was
really an attempt to retain the id as the prime mover, to avoid returning the ego to an independent status. In the
earlier theory, drive in its dammed-up state caused anxiety. The causes of this damming-up were relatively
incidental. This was the viscerogenic model. The revised theory recognized anxiety as a
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manifestation of threat to the ego and as the influence behind defence. The cause of the damming-up became the
essential element. But Freud then assumed that the actual deployment of the energies of defence was a function
of the pleasure-pain mechanism, and thus of the id, with the ego only giving the signal. As White (1963pp. 154
156) puts it, Freud invoked anxiety as 'an independent source of power fully as strong as any instinct' but
assigned it the limited status of an affect-signal, with the real power residing in that 'virtually omnipotent
principle of the id', the pleasure-pain mechanism.
Rapaport's view of Freud's discussion of the ego in the New Introductory Lectures(1933) is not available,
yet the conception of the reality ego as 'an independent agent of great power and authority' finds little support in
this work. Freud (p. 77) here makes his well known comment that the 'poor ego' must live by means of 'dodges'
by which it draws energy from the id. As Munroe (1955p. 89) points out:
Even in the New Introductory Lectures, the ego appears mainly [her italics] as a helpless mediator,
whose superior knowledge of reality and control of the pathways of attention, memory, and action
allow it a measure of expedient action, but only in the service of the id and the superego.
Munroe's phrase 'but only in the service ' suggests Rapaport's 'drive slavery' and is in the same tradition.
Seen from this perspective, Freud's emphatic debunking of the reality ego creates the impression that his final
theory stressed ego weaknessthe impression that he had tried to correct in Inhibitions, Symptoms and
Anxiety. This impression is also fostered by Freud's tendency to return occasionally to earlier modes of
conceptualization (his posthumous Outline being the most pronounced example of this), as well as by his
practice of developing his various discussions of the ego from very different and not always explicit vantage
points. Misunderstanding might be avoided if Freud's final assumption is kept in view that ideally ego and id are
'indistinguishable', which is to say that in the normal state their aims coincide without concession from either
system. Certainly if the power of the id expresses the true purpose of the individual's life, the implication is that
such purposes are not mainly infantile or maladaptive, and so for the ego to concur in these aims is not properly
represented as 'weakness' or 'slavery'.
So it may be seen that, perhaps paradoxically, with the introduction of the structural theory came a de-
emphasis on the ego as a separate structure. This is to say that defence-versus-instinct was no longer as clear cut
a conception as it had been or as conscious experience can suggest.
Freud's Treatment of Structure
However, the basis for distinguishing defence from instinct never had been clear-cut. Freud's attempts to
establish a mental topography show how difficult it can be to find a criterion for dividing structures. If the
criterion of conscious-unconscious is used, as in Freud's early topographic model, then both the repressed and
the repressing forces are in the Unconscious. If, on the other hand, the structures are divided into the repressed
and the repressing, as in Freud's later ego and id model, then the fact that both are unconscious is not accounted
for. Although the latter division was Freud's final one, he never fully embraced it. As Gill (1963p. 47) puts it in
his monograph on the structural approach:
It was clearly difficult for him to give up defining and referring to the systems by a name related to
consciousness.
It was hard to give up the idea that all unconscious contents have something in common that separates them
from all conscious contents. Yet at the same time it can be difficult to maintain this idea, since the position of
these contents is never constant; they move in and out of awareness. Freud eventually resolved to abandon the
conscious-unconscious criterion, and to use the terms conscious and unconscious only as adjectives designating
qualities which may be possessed by contents in any system at any time.
Gill (1963p. 36) holds the view that the conscious-unconscious criterion had to be abandoned when Freud
discovered that defence, as well as drive, is unconscious:
The crowning blow to the topographic theory was that the repressing force itself as well as the
repressed isif not always, at least sometimesdynamically unconscious [italics in the original].
Although this is a widely held supposition, it rests on the dubious assumption that Freud had not recognized
from the start that 'the repressing force itself' (the defence) is often 'dynamically unconscious' (repressed). As
early as 1896 Freud remarked that certain 'symptoms arose through the psychical mechanism of
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(unconscious) defence' (1896p. 162). However, psycho-analytic theory, in its classical form, seemed to
overlook the fact of unconscious defence. Freud explained in 'The Unconscious' (1915p. 172) that since some
'psychical acts' were descriptively unconscious, yet assigned to the Conscious system (as was the case with
unconscious defence),
it would put an end to all misunderstandings if, from now on in describing the various kinds of
psychical acts we were to disregard the question of whether they were conscious or unconscious.
This, however, is for various reasons impracticable, so that we cannot escape the ambiguity of using
the words 'conscious' and 'unconscious' sometimes in a descriptive and sometimes in a systematic
sense.
Unconscious defence could thus be overlooked as an awkward fact as long as Freud held the assumption that
the inimical nature of drive itself was the basic pathogenic factor. Defence was of secondary importance: the
emphasis was on the vicissitudes of instincton id analysis, and therefore, on 'the Unconscious'. It was in this
context that abandoning the conscious-unconscious criterion was 'impracticable'. As defence was found to play
a greater part in pathogenesis the toxic theory of drive was discarded, and the ego analysis phase of Freud's
work emerged. When the role of defence (which had long been seen as unconscious) gained this new
prominence, the old distinction between the Conscious and the Unconscious was no longer suitable, and the later
distinction between the repressing and the repressed became the 'practicable' one. It should be emphasized that
this decision was another practical one, leaving the problem of how to meet both of the criteria unsolved.
Consequently, the history of the structural approach is full of shifts and reversals, as the influences of the two
incompatible criteria were manifested. For example, Gill (1963pp. 2833) shows that in the Metapsychological
papers of 1915 the Conscious is at one moment given the status of the later 'ego', only to be reduced at the next
moment to a sense organ of the ego, with all ego attributes assigned to the Preconscious. The 'confusion', as he
calls it, was further confounded by, at other points, Freud's using the terms Conscious and Preconscious
interchangeably. This 'paradoxical treatment of Cs.' is seen by Gill as 'unwitting', yet it clearly reflects Freud's
wish to avoid fully suppressing either criterion, even though he had admitted that 'it could put an end to all
misunderstandings.' Thus the ultimate use of the conscious-unconscious criterion is represented by the
Conscious as the ego; when the Conscious is a sense organ, this criterion has yielded to the repressed-
repressing criterion.
Freud's shifts from the descriptive to the systemic use of 'conscious' and 'unconscious' provide another
example of the pitfalls in his work for the structural theorist. These reversals of position are closely chronicled
in Gill's monograph, where they are ascribed to 'carelessness', just as Strachey (1961pp. 6f) sees these 'lapses'
as 'inadvertent' and 'odd'. Yet in allowing these slips, just as in never really abandoning the
Conscious-Unconscious (topographic) model, Freud was demonstrating that clear-cut structural distinctions may
not be achievable without undue arbitrariness. After all, he had said (above) that
we cannot escape the ambiguity of using the words 'conscious' and 'unconscious' sometimes in a
descriptive and sometimes in a systematic sense.
Freud's unwillingness to resolve incompatible criteria in order to create a unified formulation may express
his doubt about the validity of the conception of structurally distinct systems in the mind, much as his conception
of drive had been loosened from its distinctly regional sources.
One aim of Gill's monograph is to give the coup de grce to the topographic model, so as finally to settle the
issue of from what point of view the mental systems are to be established. Gill finds in Freud's unwillingness to
drop this model a difficulty of Freud's rather than a difficulty inherent in the structural approach itself. However,
Freud's efforts can be taken to show that it may not be possible to maintain a quasi-anatomical (or
physiological) approach to psychic functioningthat the search for a criterion by which to distinguish one
structure from another must itself be questioned. From this standpoint it is fortunate that Freud so frequently
refused to sacrifice his instinctive clinical sense for the sake of Procrustean elegance, repeatedly letting more
unruly clinical imperatives assert themselves at the cost of some conceptual confusion.
Is There a Basis for Structural Division?
Gill attempts to clean up Freud's structural formulations by dropping both criteria for structural division.
Freud had already found the conscious-unconscious criterion unworkable. On
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much the same basis, Gill (1963p. 164) rejects the drive-defence criterion:
id and ego are a continuum and not a dichotomy, and the antithesis drive-defence cannot be divided up
into major structures, but exists at all levels of psychic organization.
This is to say that drive and defence can no more refer to separate structures than can conscious and
unconscious. Gill also attempts to show that the topographic model adds nothing to the ego-id model except for
the conscious-unconscious criterion. He suggests, essentially, that if neither criterion is adequate then nothing is
lost by replacing the topographic systems by the ego and the id.
In discarding the two major bases for the division into structures, Gill is brought close to eliminating the
purely structural approach, and his arguments provide much support for this step. However, Gill attempts to
save the structural approach by rehabilitating the primary-secondary process criterion, according to which id
representatives are organized on the basis of the primary process, and ego representatives are organized on the
basis of the secondary process. This wholly metapsychological criterion for structural division was developed
in 1900 as part of the topographic model. It is not mentioned in The Ego and the Id or thereafter, except for the
Outline. However, this last work was in many respects a return to earlier positions, even including revival of
the topographic model: Freud once again equated (pre)consciousness with the ego and unconsciousness with the
id. As Gill (1963p. 47) says of this work: 'We seem to have come full circle.'
Arlow and Brenner (1964, Ch. 7), in their subsequent monograph on the structural approach reject Gill's
criterion (without reference to his work) on much the same ground that he (and they) rejects the other two
criteria: they attempt to show that (to paraphrase here Gill's way of putting it for the drive-defence criterion) the
antithesis primary-secondary process cannot be divided up into major structures, but exists at all levels of
psychic organization. They therefore propose that the primary-secondary process criterion be dropped, along
with the rest of the topographic model. Their position gains added weight when it is recognized that the
primary-secondary process distinction is clearly not applicable to the superego, the core conception of Freud's
structural theory. As has thus far been customary for structural theorists, Gill does not systematically treat the
superego.
Having disposed of Gill's criterion for dividing psychic structures, Arlow and Brenner propose no other.
Although they remove the one remaining basis for the purely structural approach, Arlow and Brenner do not
discuss or even raise the criterion issue, although it is treated as fundamental in Gill's discussion. They may be
following Freud's lead in leaving structural distinctions ambiguous. After all, one reason for Freud's blurred
structural distinctions is that, as discussed above, in the post-1920 phase of Freud's work the ego is seen as part
of the id, as contrasted with the earlier topographic theory in which ego (or Cs-Pcs) and id (or Ucs) were
considered to be more distinctly separated antagonistic systems. Yet the risk in Arlow and Brenner's approach
is that by omitting this issue, and simply starting from the assumption that there is a superego, ego, and id, they
may be implicitly relying on the sense of inevitability about this model that is created by traditional usage and
common sense experience. Underlying reliance on the organ analogue may be a contributing factor, since it
provides a self-evident basis for structural divisions. The virtue of Gill's approach is that in seeking a more
systematic structural criterion he makes such criteria explicit, avoids the seemingly self-evident, and corrects
for conscious experience.
Can such a criterion be found? One already exists, but it is not purely structural or economic. Perhaps the
work of Gill and of Arlow and Brenner has shown that structural distinctions are difficult to maintain. But ego,
id, and superego are essentially dynamic distinctions. They describe aim -organizations. As Bibring indicates,
'aim' became the defining criterion of Freud's later thinking. The question which Gill makes so explicit is: how
can representatives of defence be distinguished from representatives of drive? They can be distinguished by
their aimsby their function at a given timejust as any psychic phenomenon, such as transference and
regression, represents at once a developmental level, a condition of drive, and a form of defence, with a
constantly shifting emphasis from one of these aspects to another. These emphases are not always easy to
discern, so that the often elusive distinction between drive and defence is paralleled by the difficulty in
establishing conceptual distinctions between ego, id, and superego. Such distinctions may be impossible to
draw when, as in ego psychology and the approach
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to structure associated with it, aim and purpose are eliminated on the conceptual level.
The Relation Between Drive and Defence
Interestingly enough, the appropriateness of Freud's ambivalence towards the purely structural approach is
established by Gill himself in his critique of the drive-defence criterion for structural division, that is, in his
critique of the conception of ego and id as separate unitary structuresas regions of the mind. He points out
(1963p. 164) that
a principal difficulty with the current id-ego definition is that the id is conceptualized mainly as a
motivational system, while the ego includes defensive and discharge structures as well as
motivations,
addings, as quoted above, that id and ego are not a dichotomy, and that the antithesis drive-defence occurs at
all levels of psychic organization. He speaks of the 'functional inseparability of motive and discharge structure
as well as of motive and inhibiting structure' (p. 146). Thus he arrives at the formulation that:
In general, a behavior is a defence in relation to a drive more primitive than itself, and a drive in
relation to a defense more advanced than itself (pp. 122f).
'Behaviour' is meant broadly here; Gill's examples include impulses, attitudes, fears, etc. More broadly, it
could be said that any psychic unit takes on its meaning 'in relation to' another. This is to say that the function it
servesits aimdetermines its status as a representative of id, ego, or superego. Therefore this status cannot
be discovered by studying the intrinsic nature of the unit, e.g., whether it is conscious or unconscious, bound or
mobile, organized or unorganized, mature or infantile, adaptive or maladaptive. However, an approach which
excludes aims can only appeal to these criteria.
Any drive or need can serve ego, id, or superego aims. This is what Gill is saying when he proposes that a
'behaviour' is drive to that above it on the maturational scale and defence to that below it, making up a
hierarchical layering of structures. Here Gill is perhaps still limited by the spatial perspective of his structural
metaphor, since there is also a time dimension wherein any unit can be defence or drive at different times,
depending on the organization of the moment (which can shift rapidly, although in predictable patterns).
Certainly Gill's very penetrating discussion shows why Freud was dissatisfied with purely structural
formulationswhy he could not bring himself to conform to his solutions to the problem of structural division,
and why he progressively abandoned clear-cut structural distinctions. However, committed to the further
elaboration of the concept of structure, Gill suggests that Freud's reversals of position may be inadvertent. He
then attempts to impose a new consistency on Freud's thought, only to have his own position reversed by Arlow
and Brenner.
It was a problem for Freud's structural approach to see the ego as partly or mostly unconscious. Similarly, as
Gill points out, it can be a problem for the contemporary structural approach to see primary process functioning
in the ego and structure in the id. Yet this problem may be created by the structural approach itself, since
distinguishing ego from id on the basis of aim must there be avoided.
A rendering of the structural model on the basis of aims might take shape in this way: Defence and drive are
different aims which employ the same psychic units at different times (or at the same time in relation to other
units). The organization and enduring patterning of these aims constitutes the ego-id-superego differentiation.
(Aims are no less innate or invariant for being aims.) The aims of the ego-id may be taken to be the pursuit of
certain basic gratifications. Defence, or estrangement from drive, where superego development requires it, takes
the form of structural splits between ego and id in response to anxiety, changing the aims of both. To the degree
that the ego is split off, its aims move in the direction of the avoidance of direct basic gratification (or the
pursuit of indirect basic gratification). This means that ego aims move in the direction of the avoidance of
anxiety, i.e., avoidance of feelings of insecurity (loss of control), of inferiority (weakness and vulnerability),
and of humiliation and guilt (further psychic splitting and internal estrangement). So ego aims change if they are
split off from id aims, but then id aims change also. They become the pursuit of partial (regressive)
gratifications, of discharge 'for its own sake', except insofar as these gratifications are achieved indirectly
through meeting ego aims. The structural split between ego and id is itself an attempt to gain other basic
gratificationsto meet superego aims, where these aims can be met only at the expense of the ego-id split, with
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its creation of new deficits and development of new aims to rectify them.
This oversimplified sketch may serve to illustrate the functions and interrelations of ego, id, and superego
aims. As is clear from the work of Gill, and of Arlow and Brenner, these aims have no fixed relation to given
psychic units; all the phenomena of consciousness and unconsciousness, the whole variety of symbolic
processes, and the entire affecto-motor system may be employed at different times, or even at the same time, by
different aims. If aims are filtered out on the theoretical level, we then find only what Gill calls the 'functional
inseparability' of defence and impulse. Erikson's work has been discussed above as an example of a perspective
in which aims are left in, and consequently in which all concepts used reflect this interpenetration of defence
and impulse. It may be clear at this point that this means that the purely structural conceptions of ego, id, and
superego are misleading, although these conceptions may be irreplaceable on the dynamic level.
The Synthetic Function
This also means that it is necessary to re-examine the usual assumption that certain capacities belong only to
the ego (rather than that they are available to be used in the service of ego, id, or superego aims). As an example
we may take the synthetic function, an aspect of psychic functioning much relied on as a quasi-organ principle,
i.e., thought of as a source of ego energy independent from drive.
Thus Hartmann (1952p. 168) says:
It seems hard to call nonbiological the functions of adaptation and of synthesis, or integration, or
organization (that is, the centralization of functional control), both of which we attribute to the ego.
Once established as an almost biological principle, the synthetic function is then taken to be part of the ego
since it is 'noninstinctual' (Hartmann, 1959pp. 13f):
The original concept of a defensive ego had to be broadened to include in the ego those non-defensive
functions of the mental apparatus that are noninstinctual in character We call them today 'the
nonconflictual sphere of the ego' Here belong perception, thinking, memory, action, and so on.
To those noninstinctual functions that we attribute to the ego belongs also what one can call the
centralized functional control which integrates the different parts of personality with each other and
with outer reality. This function (synthetic function or organizing function) is in a way similar to what,
since Cannon, we call homeostasis, and may represent one level of it.
The synthetic function, so construed, is taken to be part of an omnibus ego which includes all that can be seen
as neither drive nor introject (Hartmann, 1939p. 8). Regarding this omnibus ego, Colby (1955p. 77) warns:
If we continue listing more and more functions for the ego, it will lose its value as a basic construct
and become a structural scrapbasket, as the Unconscious once did in former years.
This view of the ego as a broad class of elements, including the purely physiological, is illustrated by a well
known passage in one of the opening papers in contemporary ego psychology (Hartmann, Kris, and
Loewenstein, 1946p. 19):
Freud's formulation [that all ego functions grow out of the id] has obvious disadvantages. It implies
that the infant's equipment existing at birth is part of the id. It seems, however, that the innate
apparatus and reflexes [of motility, perception, and cognition] cannot all be part of the id.
Freud's formulation does not imply that such physiological equipment is part of the id at birth, or, for that
matter, that it is part of the ego after ego-id differentiation, since Freud's formulation refers to a psychic
organization. Not only are reflexes and neural-sensorimotor apparatuses not part of the id, but the instinctual
drives themselves, as an organic substrate, were not considered part of the id by Freud. (Gill, 1963p. 135,
footnote 14, puts this succinctly, referring to 'Freud's later definition of instinctual drive which made instinctual
drive a nonmental phenomenon and its mental correlate, even in the id, an instinctual-drive representation.')
Once such 'innate apparatus and reflexes' are taken out of the ego, the non-defensive ego (or conflict-free ego
sphere) may be seen as simply part of the undifferentiated ego-id. Thus Freud (1926ap. 97) noted in his major
commentary on the relation between ego and id that
as a rule we can only distinguish one from the other when there is tension or conflict between them.
The synthetic function can seem pre-eminently to belong to the ego, appearing to be an exception to the
proposition that any psychic function
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or process can serve ego, id, or superego, and cannot be used to distinguish between them. Hartmann's tendency
to 'organicize' the synthetic functionto treat it as a noninstinctual homeostatic regulatory mechanismmakes
its status as an ego apparatus appear almost self-evident, thereby also invoking a constitutional basis for the
differentiation into major structures.
How would the synthetic function look when treated within a perspective in which ego and id cannot be so
clearly isolated? This is the perspective in which Nunberg originally introduced the concept; in 'The Synthetic
Function of the Ego' (1931p. 122) he suggested that
since the ego is derived from the id, it is probably from this very source (Eros) that it acquires its
binding and productive power.
As discussed above, Loewald, speaking for later Freudian theory, asserts that synthesis and binding can no
longer be considered to be functions of the ego only.
In Erikson's work the need for identity is the need for synthesis, just as the establishment of a synthesis means
the establishment of an identity. Thus the sense of ego identity is 'a criterion for the silent doings of ego
synthesis' (1956p. 102). When identity has been established, 'it is the only inner arrangement which prevents the
superego's permanent alliance with the unreconstructed remnants of latent infantile rage' (1963p. 279). This is to
say that 'identity, in outbalancing at the conclusion of childhood the potentially malignant dominance of the
infantile superego, permits the individual to forego excessive self-repudiation' (1956p. 164). On the other hand,
the superego may 'regain its territory from identity' (1956p. 158). Where identity is weak, intimacy can mean
dissociation and fusion (1956pp. 124f). In each of these statements 'identity' can be replaced by 'synthesis', but
Erikson, in sharp contrast to Hartmann, tries to avoid purely process conceptions, with their mechanistic or
organic metaphors, and so prefers a term which better reflects the dynamic forces involved.
Thus Erikson thinks of a pressing urge towards growth, development, and mastery. He speaks of the child's
'individual way of mastering experience (his ego synthesis), ' and remarks, as cited above, that the need to
synthesize 'can look like an especially powerful manifestation of naked instinct' (1963pp. 235, 240). This is a
far cry from Hartmann's homeostatic regulatory mechanism.
Hartmann chooses to emphasize the balancing function of ego synthesis, making possible his appeal to a
regulatory principle, as contrasted with an imperative need or aim. This provides for a source of primary ego
energy while still avoiding any conception of an ego drive. So construed, the defensive functioning of ego
synthesis is not easily encompassed since there can be no such thing as too much homeostasis. Erikson's
emphasis on the need for synthesis suggests the possibility of an aggrandizement of ego aims, and therefore more
easily accomodates the use of synthesis as a defence. Synthesis in the service of defence is illustrated by the
aberrant ego and its intolerance of any internal contradiction, even though such restriction forfeits real synthesis.
Erikson's (and Nunberg's) views also accommodate the use of synthesis as a form of, as well as a vehicle for,
instinctual gratification. This may demonstrate that Hartmann's structural conception of the synthetic function,
while it supports the idea of an ego-bound capacity, does not fully represent the scope of this function and its
participation in the aims of either the ego or the id.
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that synthesis is a function of the total psyche, partaking of all its
aspects. Thus it can take on drive characteristics, it can be in the service of drive or defence, and it is itself a
developmental capacity (Rank and MacNaughton, 1950, p. 56, point out that 'without the central core built from
the introjection of a stable maternal image, conceived as a whole' the synthetic function will not be fully
acquired). The multi-faceted character of synthesis may not be adequately grasped by a theory in which
attribution of a function to a psychic structure is an almost automatic first step.
Theoretical Consequences of the Structural Approach
Some of the broader theoretical and clinical consequences of the structural approach overlap those discussed
for the economic approach (Apfelbaum, 1965). The principal theoretical consequence of the contemporary
structural approach, as such, is the creation of the organ ego. This conception of a structurally distinct
autonomous ego fits Freud's early ego of self-preservation and so can support anachronistic usages. It also runs
the risk of taking as inevitable the isolation of parts of the personality.
The original use of 'ego' to mean the observing
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self is still widely found though often deplored. This hold-over from naive experience may owe its survival to
the fact that the subjective experience of a reasonable ego has not been accounted for and integrated into psycho-
analytic theory. Hartmann's 'organ ego' may isolate rather than integrate such experience. In other words, the use
of the structural distinction itself as a causal principle fosters the preservation of the taken-for-granted ego of
Freud's early work (although Hartmann, 1950, has no wish to preserve this concept).
The following illustrations of this usage, chosen at random, may make the point clearer: 'During analysis the
ego was watching the unfolding of this material with horror and puzzlement' (Bychowski, 1956p. 333); 'In many
hysterical patients the ego is suggestible' (Katan, 1958p. 269). A well known additional example is Sterba's
(1934) conception of the splitting of the ego to form a therapeutic alliance. For a more recent reference to this
concept, Grete Bibring (1954p. 171), in listing the indispensable conditions of analysis, mentions 'the
therapeutic split of the ego, the exclusive basis through which the essential alliance with the analyst can be
formed.' Each of these writers is appealing more or less directly to the experience of a 'reasonable ego', that is
to say, to the common sense reality egoan embodiment of all strivings towards realistic objectives. Thus it
can watch the unfolding of the material, it can be suggestible (or objective), and it can enter into a therapeutic
alliance. Although this original use of the term finds apparent confirmation in conscious experience, there is
little in psycho-analytic theory proper to support the idea of such a separate reality-serving agency. Indeed,
Freud in his later work did much to debunk this idea. However, as Rapaport (above) sees it, in outer reality 'the
ego has a powerful ally against the instincts.' The ego psychologists, in avoiding any recourse to ego drives
while considering the id to be maladaptive and infantile, must rely heavily on the effect of outer reality, i.e., on
the forces of evolution in their shaping of the ego apparatuses. Kris's view of insight as an attainment of the
'objective ego', free of motives, is part of this perspective and can only serve to support anachronistic use of the
ego concept.
Looked at more closely, it is apparent that the experience of a reasonable ego is a product of the whole
psyche. Certainly Katan would agree that suggestibility is a condition which can hardly be limited to the ego. It
is clear also that it is not Sterba's or Bibring's intention to suggest that allegiances and identifications are borne
by the ego only; id cathexis is assumed, as is the parallel formation of an auxiliary superego. In the therapeutic
alliance the id and superego, as well as the ego, are 'split'. Colby (1955p. 143) takes note of this tendency to use
the term 'ego' while implicitly referring to all three psychic structures:
The term 'ego' is nowadays often synonymous with the total psychic apparatus. For example, the
function of reality-testing usually ascribed to the ego obviously requires id and superego
participation. Thus reality-testing is actually a function of the whole tripartit psychic apparatus and
not of only one of its parts.
Possibly this idea of a realistic ego survives to support an 'ego psychology' largely because it rests on a
sense of conviction drawn from an implicit and unrecognized reference to the whole psyche. The subjective
experience of a reasonable ego, while offering the image of an agency which can stand apart from the rest of the
personality, is actually a product of the rest of the personality.
The other principal theoretical consequence of the organic approach to the ego is that it runs the risk of
accepting pathological prototypes for its basic reference state. When, as in Freud's later thinking, ego and id are
seen as a unit, then the splitting off of the ego from the id is more readily seen as a consequence of defence, as a
response to anxiety. But in the case of the organ ego its separateness is built into the theory and accepted as an
evolutionary development. Hartmann draws the contrast with unitary animal instincts which avoid conflict but
lose plasticity. Even if this contrast is appropriate, it does not indicate an inevitable antagonism between an id
which threatens survival and an ego which, with survival as its aim, must consequently avoid being 'impinged
upon in its essential functions by the id.' Erikson draws the same contrast, but he thinks of the instinct fragments
as seeking, rather than fighting, integration. Freud (1926app. 154-156), in his definitive statement on the ego-id
separation, analyses it as a consequence of infantile helplessness in the face of strong instinctual imperatives
interdicted by subjectively perceived reality (i.e., by anxiety).
The greatest degree of structuralization appears in the obsessive-compulsive state. Hartmann and Rapaport
disavow this prototype,
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pointing out that structural splits must be to some degree reversible, and that the ego must not become too
autonomous, losing its capacity to regress. Yet, in practice, their model is not easily distinguished from this
prototype. For example, their conception of the ego as a 'structure' rather than an 'aim' emphasizes the passively
experienced ego, just as their disposition to think in terms of 'drive slavery' or of being 'at the mercy' of drive
emphasizes passively experienced impulses. This suggests the obsessive-compulsive world, as does the
concern with control over outer reality, the conception of objectivity as detachment from drive, the interest in
questions of autonomy, and the structural hypertrophy that is manifested by these concerns. Loewald (1952p.
448) observes that
psychoanalytic theory has unwittingly taken over much of the obsessive neurotic's experience and
conception of reality and has taken it for granted as 'the objective reality'.
(This may contribute to the conception of the character disorder as a 'deformation', of which Gitelson, 1958,
is critical. Perhaps what is really meant is a deformed obsessive-compulsive state. Thus the narcissistic
character is taken to represent inadequate or incomplete structural differentiation, when this very lack of
structural splitting may constitute the primary source, for this state, of what Gitelson calls 'adaptive capacity', as
compared with the obsessive-compulsive state.)
Schafter (1960pp. 186f) has the same thing to say about the relations between ego and superego.
Paraphrasing Freud's final formulation of the relations between ego and id, Schafer proposes that 'the normal
superego is close to the ego and often indistinguishable from it.' Yet, he adds, Freud used obsessional neurosis,
melancholia, and paranoia as his models for the superego. As a consequence these 'pathologically intensified,
regressive models' were built into Freud's general conception of the superego, with the result that the more
structurally distinct hostile superego tended to become the basic reference state, with the more assimilated, less
visible, benevolent superego being relatively neglected. This is to say that where the superego is accepted as a
separate structure, there may be built into the theory an acceptance of the all-important, fateful failure of
assimilation of introjects, limiting understanding of the superego only to its more primitive forms.
Clinical Consequences of the Structural Approach
These theoretical aspects of the structural approach have clinical consequences, although structural theory
has generally been developed as if this were not the case. One such consequence is suggested by Loewald
(1960p. 23) who observes that in contemporary psycho-analytic theory
the ego is seen as an organ of adaptation to the outer world, whereas instinctual drives were left
behind in the realm of stimulus-reflex physiology. This, and specifically the conception of instinct as
an 'inner' stimulus impinging on the nervous apparatus, has affected the formulations concerning the
role of 'objects' in libidinal development and, by extension, has vitiated the understanding of the
object-relationship between patient and analyst in psycho-analytic treatment.
In addition, reliance on the organ analogy to supply the causal principle behind ego control has meant neglect
of the internal object relationship between superego and ego, thereby contributing to neglect of the relationship
between patient and analyst. This 'depersonalized' (Sutherland) approach is shown by Zetzel to be accompanied
by a de-emphasis on the analysis of the transference. This is the background for Gill's (with Brenman, 1959, p.
356) assertion that the analytic relationship is a hypnotic relationship, although in attenuated, covert form. Gill
(1951) devotes a substantial part of his discussion of 'Ego Psychology and Psychotherapy' to hypnotherapy.
The organic view of defence is associated with a therapeutic concern to foster defence and to avoid
interpretation in the presence of severe pathology (Zetzel). The assumption that the ego is 'pitted against' drive
that only the ego develops while drive, whenever potent, remains infantileinevitably leads to the
therapeutic goal of preserving defence, strengthening the reality ego, and avoiding unconscious fantasy. The
emphasis on ego autonomy opens the way for the popular conception of 'ego-bolstering' which
in the wake of therapeutic short cuts can be seen to creep even into professional discussions of the
ego (Erikson).
Therapeutic goals move in the direction of anxiety reduction and symptom relief.
This clinical approach also articulates well with the conception of the ego as a loose aggregate of functions,
comprising all that is
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neither drive nor introject. This omnibus ego (apparently unaffected by the synthetic function) may contain parts
that are bound up in conflict while other parts are conflict-free. If, in contrast, the ego represents an aim-
organization in dynamic equilibrium, then it is less easy to conceive of working with some of its parts while
leaving others untouched, as the defence therapies attempt to do. Whatever value this approach may have on its
own merits, as a concrete expression of the concerns of contemporary ego psychology it provides perhaps the
most direct demonstration of the degree to which the ego psychologists have bypassed Freud's later work,
drawing on earlier phases of psycho-analytic theory for their inspiration.
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]
Apfelbaum, B. (1966). On Ego Psychology: A Critique of the Structural Approach to Psycho-Analytic Theory.
Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 47:451-475

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(1966).

International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 47:451-475

1 Department of Psychiatry, Cowell Memorial Hospital, University of California.

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