EGO PSYCHOLOGY

Ego and Defense Mechanisms

• Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna Freud identified as the first voice of
ego psychology
• Encouraged by her father to practice psychoanalysis to children
• Best known for elucidating the defense mechanisms
• Using these mechanisms she ego mastered
• Environment and shaping forces of each individual’s psychopathology,
id and superego
• Her benchmark terminology:
• Repression
• Suppression
• Rationalization
• Intellectualization
 Ego and Defense Mechanisms
• Sigmund Freud: Repression is the predominant defense mechanism

• Chief tool available for ego to defend itself against the environment

• major thrust of analysis was to comprehend the content of repressed

material

• Anna Freud’s articulation of the defense mechanisms:

• Pointed analysts toward the examination of the dynamic processes

operative within the ego itself

• She maintained that analysis of the ego by comparison with analysis of

the id
• Major thrust of analysis: to uncover and comprehend content of
repressed material
 ADAPTATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
• Promulgation of ego psychological theory adopted by refugees analysts

• Ernst Kris, Rudolph Lowenstein, Rene Spitz, and chief among Freud’s
protégés, Heinz Hartmann

• Hartmann explained: origin of ego, ego tame id

• Hartmann: unifying process of human psychological development was

adaptation

• Outcome of successful adaptation is a “fitting together” of individual with

environment

• Hartmann’s model: Ingredients of ego and id are present at birth in an

undifferentiated matrix

• Id, ego, and superego continue to separate by the process of differentiation

 ADAPTATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
• Ego, primitive factors are replaced by effective ones

• Experiences of frustration: developing ego, remember experiences to delay

gratification, anticipating future

• Memory of past gratification allows ego to engage in delayed gratification

• Process mandates creation of an internal world of object representations

• Inner world facilitates exercise of delayed gratification

• Structures ego mature: need for external fulfillment diminishes and

autonomy increases
 ADAPTATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
• Psychic structures enable individual to be less dependent on environment

• Structure formation serves adaptation

• Superego is one outcome of adaptation to the social environment

• Ego development depends on the maturation of body and brain

• Superego development is more purely social and abstract

• Hartmann emphasized on identification and idealization

• Infant first identifies parents as idealized figures who provide protection

and gratification
 ADAPTATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
• Models the moral standards of the parents

• Drive theory: drives shape and guide the structures

• Ego and superego divert libidinal energy away

• Maturing ego seek affection, entertainment, and enlightenment

• Aggression is redirected from the desire for destruction of others

• Power is used by superego to restrain destructive pursuit of id impulses

• Lassoed by ego and transformed into competitiveness

• Psychic structures enable the individual to be less dependent on the

environment
Models of Origin of Ego
 ADAPTATION AND DIFFERENTIATION
• Modification of innate aggression proceeds by several means:

• Displacement: Aggression redirected to objects like criminals

• Sublimation: Aggression is completely divorced from an obvious object

• Energy may be exerted chopping trees or hauling trash

• Fusion with libido: Healthy adult relationships, libidinal element

predominates

• Admiring relationship with a mentor may involve competition.

 Evolution of Defense Mechanisms
• Tools for adaptation to the environment

• Alloplastic means (changing the environment) or autoplastic ones (changing the self)

• Alloplastic solutions: require cooperation of elements outside self and are thwarted

• Mature, confident ego is more apt to attempt autoplastic solutions

• Child demanding attention from an unresponsive parent is frustrated

• earliest stages of ego development: role of the defenses is to minimize pain

• Also gratify id wishes

• Through application of defense mechanisms lose their defensive function

• Mechanisms that began as reflexes can come to change personality

• Identification is the principle example

• Infant: identification protects against being victim of environment

 Evolution of Defense Mechanisms
• Promotes the development of superego function

• Social realm: child identifying peers learns how to blend

• Achieves the libidinal gratification of belonging

• Identification achieves its own rewards independent of defensive purpose

• Identifying with admired teacher promotes development of intellectual skills

• Provide satisfaction outside the context of drive gratification or defense

against distress

• Transformation of ego functions: outside the defensive realm

• Allows ego psychology to explain nuances of personality development

• Conflict-free sphere of ego development

• Motor sphere: grasping, crawling, and walking

 Early Ego Development
• Spitz began by considering the role of perception in the infant

• For baby: Sensation is all visceral and poorly differentiated

• Experience with mother allows for modulation of intensity

• Repeated experiences establish memory traces

• Interaction with mother: allows child to put memories to work for ego

• Spitz identified three organizing principles in development of ego:

• The smiling response: Child begins to smile in the presence of pleasant stimuli

• Stranger anxiety: Most children express distress in the presence of unfamiliar

people

• Semantic communication: Children can formulate words with the specific

intent
 Adult Development
• Erikson posited a succession of life crises, an epigenetic scheme of
development:
• Basic trust versus basic mistrust: child learns that the world is a trustworthy
place
• Autonomy versus shame and doubt: developing nervous system
• Initiative versus guilt: growing child attempts to exert influence
• Industry versus inferiority: child is turning away from parents
• Identity versus identity diffusion: assert one’s independence by acting
• Intimacy versus isolation: task is to attain a sense of emotional maturity
• Generativity versus self-absorption: Generativity is a sense of living
• Integrity versus despair: one ideally comes to a sense of balance among
choices
 Adult Development
• Epigenetic scheme:

• No crisis is resolved completely in one direction or the other

• adult who lacks any sense of mistrust would be easily exploited

• Crises persist beyond their most relevant phases

• adults frequently struggle with issues along the same axis

• The resolution of each crisis depends powerfully on the interpersonal

environment

• Infant who is not fed when hungry cannot learn basic trust

• Society ridicules elders makes it hard for one to achieve integrity

 MATURATION OF DEFENSES
• Erikson’s model: Psychological development is a lifelong process

• He clustered the defense mechanisms according to the stages of life:

• Immature defenses: projection, passive aggression, acting out

• Intermediate (or neurotic) defenses: dissociation, displacement, isolation

of affect, intellectualization

• Most commonly employed in moderately disabling conditions

• Mature defenses: characteristic of healthy adults, include altruism,

sublimation, anticipation, and humor

 REFINEMENT OF THE THEORIES
• Freud’s formulation, the original psychic structure was id alone

• Ego arose, at the expense of id strength and energy

• Drive demands were the source of all mental activity

• Hartmann noted that elements of ego function

• Perception, were present at birth

• Ego and id differentiated from the matrix: through conflict and conflict-
free development

• Model offered less-tortured interpretations of the complicated problems

• Ego psychology used the language of Freud’s original drive model

• Model of ego development contingent on interactions with personal and

social environment
 Conclusion
• Anna Freud described the major psychological defense mechanisms still broadly
accepted
• Heinz Hartmann described psychological development from the
• perspective of adaptation
• employment of defense mechanisms to allow ego to fit with environment
• Ego psychology focuses on this process as the central element
• Ego psychological theory maintains an undifferentiated
• matrix of psychic structure
• Present from birth and that id, ego, and superego differentiate from it
• Conflict-free sphere of development that encompasses achievement of capacities
(motor skills and Intelligence)
• Ego development continues beyond childhood
• Erikson and Vaillant described evolution of ego functions throughout life
THANK YOU