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    Ego Psychology

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    Muaz Hussain
    Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud was a pioneer in ego psychology and elucidated common defense mechanisms. She found the ego defends itself using repression, suppression, rationalization, and intellectualization. Later theorists like Heinz Hartmann emphasized adaptation and how the ego, id, and superego differentiate from an initial undifferentiated matrix through conflict and conflict-free development. Erikson proposed stages of development across the lifespan involving resolving crises through appropriate use of defense mechanisms that evolve from immature to intermediate to mature. Ego psychology focuses on the ego's process of adapting to the environment using defense mechanisms.

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    Ego Psychology

    Uploaded by

    Muaz Hussain
    541 views18 pages
    Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud was a pioneer in ego psychology and elucidated common defense mechanisms. She found the ego defends itself using repression, suppression, rationalization, and intellectualization. Later theorists like Heinz Hartmann emphasized adaptation and how the ego, id, and superego differentiate from an initial undifferentiated matrix through conflict and conflict-free development. Erikson proposed stages of development across the lifespan involving resolving crises through appropriate use of defense mechanisms that evolve from immature to intermediate to mature. Ego psychology focuses on the ego's process of adapting to the environment using defense mechanisms.

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    Ego Psychology

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    Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud was a pioneer in ego psychology and elucidated common defense mechanisms. She found the ego defends itself using repression, suppression, rationalization, and intellectualization. Later theorists like Heinz Hartmann emphasized adaptation and how the ego, id, and superego differentiate from an initial undifferentiated matrix through conflict and conflict-free development. Erikson proposed stages of development across the lifespan involving resolving crises through appropriate use of defense mechanisms that evolve from immature to intermediate to mature. Ego psychology focuses on the ego's process of adapting to the environment using defense mechanisms.

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    541 views18 pages

    Ego Psychology

    Uploaded by

    Muaz Hussain
    Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud was a pioneer in ego psychology and elucidated common defense mechanisms. She found the ego defends itself using repression, suppression, rationalization, and intellectualization. Later theorists like Heinz Hartmann emphasized adaptation and how the ego, id, and superego differentiate from an initial undifferentiated matrix through conflict and conflict-free development. Erikson proposed stages of development across the lifespan involving resolving crises through appropriate use of defense mechanisms that evolve from immature to intermediate to mature. Ego psychology focuses on the ego's process of adapting to the environment using defense mechanisms.

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    The key takeaways are that Anna Freud elucidated major psychological defense mechanisms like repression, suppression, rationalization and intellectualization. Heinz Hartmann described psychological development from the perspective of adaptation and the employment of defense mechanisms to allow the ego to fit with the environment. Ego psychology focuses on this process of adaptation as the central element. Erikson and Vaillant described the evolution of ego functions throughout life from childhood to adulthood.

    Anna Freud described the major psychological defense mechanisms as repression, suppression, rationalization and intellectualization. These are still broadly accepted today.

    Heinz Hartmann described psychological development from the perspective of adaptation and the employment of defense mechanisms to allow the ego to fit with the environment. Ego psychology focuses on this process of adaptation as the central element.

    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

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