Ego Psychology Flashcards
The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (Anna Freud, 1936)
Main points:
- turning against the self: Anger or hatred towards others may cause the person to feel guilt. The person deals with this guilt by turning their feelings towards the other person and inwards towards themselves. If the bad is in the outside world, the child has no hope of ever gaining control over it, but if the bad is within the child, then it is safer.
- moved from placing emphasis on id strivings to ego functions.
- Anna Freud viewed pathology as arising from primitive and inflexible, rigid use of defenses.
- Anna Freud basically outlines her position on viewing the ego as important in its own right (shifting the focus away from only the id). Most of the common defense mechanisms are outlined in this book with case examples. A. Freud discusses the importance of interpreting defense mechanisms rather than unconscious id impulses. In addition, Anna also focuses on defense mechanisms in children and adolescents.
The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (Anna Freud, 1936)
Ego functions include:
- impulse control
- judgment
- affect regulation
- reality testing
- defenses
The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (Anna Freud, 1936)
How does the ego develop?
- Impact of the environment on the development of the child
- Ego develops out of frustration and delay gratification, this leads to the development of defenses
- Aberrant ego development results in primitive and rigid defenses, harsh superego, and poor ego functioning (pathology)
- Insight is curative however A. Freud’s focus was on the ego and its defenses- interpretations are directed at uncovering ego defenses and superego functioning
- The patient then discovers an observing ego which aligns with the therapist, this allows the opportunity to become an active, changing agent in one’s life, positively transforming maladaptive behavior patterns
The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (Anna Freud, 1936)
Unconscious conflict of ____ and ____ cause ____ and person defends by ______.
- anger
- hate
- guilt
- turning against the self
The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (Anna Freud, 1936)
Considering the bad to be:
- internal gives the child a sense of control, (If the bad is within me then I can control it)
- external and in the world means I am helpless against it, feelings of helplessness ensue, so the child turns anger against himself
Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (Heinz Hartmann, 1939)
Main points:
- Ego included innate capacities for such things as perception, attention, memory, concentration, motor coordination, and language.
- Under normal conditions, an average expectable environment, these capacities developed into ego functions and had autonomy from the libidinal and aggressive drives.
- The task of the psychoanalyst was to neutralize conflicted impulses and expand the conflict-free spheres of ego functions.
- psychoanalysis facilitated an individual’s adaptation to his or her environment
- Ego is there at birth, it just germinates (conflicts are not needed to develop the ego)
- moves away from defensive functioning and focuses on normal development
Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (Heinz Hartmann, 1939)
Innate capacities include:
- perception
- attention
- memory
- concentration
- motor coordination
- language
Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (Heinz Hartmann, 1939)
Neutralization
-a process through which the ego changes the nature of the drive and turns them into productive channels
Hospitalism- A Inquiry Into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Childhood (René Spitz, 1945)
Premise
- His influential research with infants and young children in various settings, including a foundling home and a penal nursery. Basically, his work in the orphanage.
- Wrote about the concepts of apathy and anaclitic depression.
The First Year of Life (René Spitz, 1965)
According to Spitz, infants pass through three stages corresponding to stepwise developments in object relations:
(1) the objectless stage (three first months of life), characterized by “non-differentiation” between baby and its mother;
(2) the stage of “the precursor of the object” (from three to eight months) in which the smiling response indicates the beginning of object relations; and
(3) the stage of the libidinal object (from eighth to fifteenth month), by which time the mother is recognized as a real partner and the infant can distinguish her face from strangers’ faces.
* From the fifteenth month, the child enters into semantic communication with gesture and the use of “no,” indicating the emergence of the autonomous ego.
Erik Erikson’s stage theory (1950, 1958, 1968, 1986, 1987)
- identity crisis
- stage theory follows epigenetic principle
- He not only expanded Freud’s theory to later stages of life, but he also broadened it considerably, by emphasizing cultural differences and by his stressing the development of the ego through identity challenges that were more psychosocial than strictly biological
- Erikson’s theory also expanded Freud’s understanding of erogenous zones (e.g., Basic Trust vs. Mistrust includes oral AND respiratory, sensory, and kinesthetic functions
- Goal is to strike a balance – not deny either one. Favoring the first (more positive) term can lead to a maladaptive tendency. Favoring the second (less positive) term can lead to a malignant tendency. Work toward this goal is both unconscious and conscious.
- Ego strength increases through resolving the conflict between the two alternatives
Erik Erikson’s stage theory following epigenetic principle (1950, 1958, 1968, 1986, 1987)
- As with Freud, Erikson believed that successful development at each stage was requisite for successful development at later stages.
- The stages unfold in a predefined order. Each builds on the previous one and prepares the ground for the next.
- The analogy with biology breaks down somewhat, however, as Erikson was a great optimist: he believed that one could, through psychoanalysis (for example), deal with and resolve earlier conflicts later in life, although this was not an easy task
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development (1950, 1985)
List the stages
- First stage (0-12/18 months): Trust vs. mistrust
- Second stage (18 months- 3 years): autonomy vs. shame and doubt
- Third stage (3-6 years): initiative vs. guilt
- Fourth stage (6-12 years): industry vs. inferiority
- Fifth stage (12-18 years): identity vs. role confusion
- Sixth stage (19-40 years): intimacy vs. isolation
- Seventh stage (40-65 years): generativity vs. stagnation
- Eighth stage (65+ years): Integrity vs. despair
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development (1950, 1985)
First Stage:
Age
Name
Psychosexual Mode
Main points
-(0-12/18 months)
Basic Trust vs. Basic Mistrust
-Psychosexual Mode: Oral, Respiratory, Sensory, Kinesthetic
-The basic strength of the first stage is hope, or the expectation that difficulties in life, presenting whatever challenges they may, will eventually result in a positive outcome.
-The antithesis of hope is a lack of hope and withdrawal.
-The crucial social interactions are with the mother or mother surrogate.
-What must be emphasized is that, through these interactions, the child learns both trust and mistrust, but in the right proportion: a healthy sense of mistrust is also necessary for successful dealings with others in social relations.
-Problems will develop not only if the infant’s basic needs are neglected, but also if it is overindulged. With Erikson, however, the child’s needs are not merely oral, and are not primarily sexual (compared to Freud).
-In addition to experiencing pleasure from breast or bottle, the child needs physical contact and consistency in attention.
-The child’s sense of trust grows along with the development of the ego: it senses that its needs will be met in an orderly fashion while also learning the importance of delay of gratification. An important example of ego development and trust building is when the child learns to accept its mother’s absence without undo anxiety
-The child must not only learn to trust in its mother but also to trust in itself. This comes with learning of self-regulation, as when the child acclimatizes to teething and learns to suckle at the breast more gently.
-The mother or mother figure plays an important part in the child’s development of trust, not only by meeting the child’s basic comfort and nurturance needs, but by having confidence in herself.
-An anxious mother transmits this anxiety to the child, which is unhealthy: a mother’s tension causes a corresponding state of tension in her baby, resulting in a feeling of insecurity and lack of trust.
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development (1950, 1985)
Second Stage:
Age
Name
Psychosexual Mode
Main points
- 18 months-3 years
- Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
- Pyschosexual Mode: Anal, Urethral, and Muscular
- Will is the basic strength of this stage, compulsion the negative core weakness.
- Toddler struggles to gain a sense of autonomy or control of bodily functions, large, and small motor skills
- Walking, talking, and later dressing and feeding oneself, as well as learning to control bowel functions, are all tasks that the child learns during this stage.
- She or he wants to do these things without adult help. But adults realize that the child is not always capable of doing these things herself, and patience with letting her have her own way can wear thin.
- The child, in turn, seems at times to be at war with her parents. She wants to do things on her own, yet can’t – a very frustrating situation all around!
- The child often feels ashamed of his or her lack of control when, for example, sitting on a potty trying to control urinary or bowel functions.
- The parent also risks increasing the child’s shame, either unintentionally (by a lack of patience, for instance) or intentionally (by exhibiting anger or ridicule).
- Shame and doubt are the natural opposites of childhood autonomy.
- the “terrible twos.”
- The parents must be patient with the child, but not to the point of sainthood. Parents must establish – and children desperately need – rules or standards of proper behavior.
- The child must learn the meaning of the word “no.” But often the willful child learns this only too well – she frequently defies parental requests using this same word.
- Erikson stresses the learning of “law and order.” But parents who over control their children risk increased shame and lack of a sense of autonomy: such over controlling behavior can break the child’s will and (Erikson believed) lead to the kinds of “anal” neuroses (extreme compulsiveness or messiness) described by Freud.
- Erikson also noted that different cultures have different standards of parental expectations for children’s behavior. The Lakota Sioux tribe, for instance, does not try to force children to learn how to control their toilet behavior; instead, children learn naturally in time through imitation. By contrast, the standards for children in the United States today may seem much more restrictive; Erikson (even back in his time) thought that our society was very restrictive and “sanitized.”
- In recapping, Erikson expanded Freud’s ideas about the so-called anal stage in several ways. First, he expanded the notion of the child’s need for control or autonomy beyond just toilet training, to a number of physical challenges such as walking, learning to do things for him or herself, and so forth. Second, he emphasized the role of the development of the ego here as in other stages, as opposed to Freud’s developmental psychology anchored in id impulses. And third, rather than see the challenges of childhood from the limited standpoint of a given culture, he noted that these challenges and the way they are handled by parents and society differ across cultural settings.
