Ego Psychology - Post Freud

Question 1

Anna Freud

Answer 1

(1936) Founder: Ego Psychology. ‘The Ego and its Mechanisms of Defense’ presented a list of ego defenses. Defenses were cataloged according to their operational value along a developmental continuum – from primitive to more sophisticated functioning.

Question 2

Ego Psychology

Answer 2

Actors: Anna Freud, Hartmann; Kris; Loewenstein; Rappaport; and Erik Erikson. They increased the ego’s importance expanding into broader functions - adaptation, autonomy, drive neutralization. Thye moved the focus from conflict to adaptation, mastery, and deficit. The ego disguises the appearance of the id’s impulses; thereby preventing social censure and resistances that are operating.

Question 3

Ego Psych - Treatment Implications

Answer 3

Change in technique (focus from id to ego) from free associations to starting at the surface, which shows their defenses. Consequently involves more work analyzing the resistance that is operating (which is the work of the ego).

Question 4

Ego Psych - Analytic Attitude

Answer 4

Post - WWII psychologistis’ views presented as the objective, distant. scientist.

Question 5

Erik Erikson

Answer 5

(1950) ‘Childhood and Society.’
He expanded Freud’s psychosexual theory of development.
He believed that each stage (8) had a developmental task “conflict” that needed to be achieved.
Working through these stages leads to a sense of competence and a healthy personality

Question 6

Erikson v. Freud

Answer 6

Both saw conflict as a turning point
Erikson: placed emphasis on the environment and social factors v. basic needs and drives in the psychosexual stages.
He also expanded his theory into adulthood.

Question 7

Erikson’s 8 Stages of Development

Answer 7

1. Trusts v. mistrust (oral),
2. Autonomy v. shame/doubt (anal),
3. Initiative v. guilt (I have in a triade I want and I feel guilty if I succeeded in removing one parent),
4. Industry v. inferiority (latency),
5. Identity v. Role confusion (object relation),
6. Intimacy v. Isolation (soulmate opp),
7. Generativity v. Stagnation,
8. Ego integrity v. Despair (elder life reflection).

Question 8

Heinz Hartmann

Answer 8

Still based in drive theory, but focused is on exec. functioning. Emphasis on Ego v. Id. Work starts with the surface - w/analysis of resistances/defenses. “Conflict Free Sphere”: the ego had functions that were free of conflict. Language; perception; object comprehension; and thinking are understood as domains of the ego, and are not influenced by intrapsychic conflict. Today we disagree

Question 9

Ego Functions - 8

Answer 9

1. Reality Testing,
2. Assessment,
3. Regulations of Impulses and Delay of Gratification,
4. Object Relations,
5. Defenses,
6. Stimulus Barriers,
7. Synthetic-Integrative Functioning,
8. Capacity for Introspection/Self-Reflection

Question 10

Reality Testing

Answer 10

MSEs

Question 11

Assessment

Answer 11

can i come into a situation, see what is happening, assess what i need to do, and plan for it? Excellent or compromised judgement planning, assessment. Can you look at a situation in life and assess it within that context?

Question 12

Regulation of Impulses and Delay of Gratification

Answer 12

the ability to modulate an impulse. Regulation of impulses.

Question 13

Object Relations

Answer 13

do I have the capacity to connect with people and relate with them in a respricocity of care? Can I have friends that are sustained over time? Can a person establish an intimate relationship with someone else where there is reciprocity in shared goals for their future? Can they give what is needed in a meaningful, intimate relationship?

Question 14

Defenses

Answer 14

Obstacles, resistances in the way preventing us from getting the work and material into the patient’s mind. Defenses are there to help the person cope. Defenses keep getting acquired throughout life so we develop new ways of coping through things

Question 15

Stimulus Barriers

Answer 15

Can you filter what is important and what is secondary as opposed to ppl flooded with stimuli which prevents them from reality testing?

Question 16

Synthetic-Integrative Functioning

Answer 16

Can you extract the essence of what is important. For example, describe a book.

Question 17

Capacity for Introspection/Self-reflection

Answer 17

does this person take in and reflect on what I said to them? Are they able to look back and reflect on something they did?

Question 18

Problems w/Ego Psych’s Model

Answer 18

Therapist as omniscient. Compared to today’s 2-person psychology; collaborative therapeutic approach.

Question 19

Self Psychology

Answer 19

(1966) He viewed the self as the basic constituent of the psychic apparatus. The self is the totality of the individual, consisting of all characteristic attributes, conscious and unconscious, mental and physical. Kohut hypothesized the existence of an archaic grandiose self with fantasies of perfection, to make up for the self’s actual weakness and impotence in order to establish narcissistic equilibrium.

Question 20

Infantile Origin of the Self

Answer 20

Relatedness with others is essential for psychological growth. The self will form itself through a relationship with others.

Question 21

Self Objects

Answer 21

Self objects provide the necessary experience for the gradual development of the self. Kohut gives much more weight to the parent attunement toward the baby, and places the blame of pathologies on the caregivers.

Question 22

3 Types of Self Objects

Answer 22

For self-psychologists, all 3 of these are important to attain a healthy sense of self:

1. Mirroring - “I child are perfect and you parent admire me,”
2. Idealization, “You parent are perfect and I child am part of you”
3. Twinship - “You parent are like me child; we are both perfect”

Question 23

Narcissism to Cohesion

Answer 23

For healthy development, failures have to be incremental, not traumatic and abrupt - Delay of gratification. These failures allow the child to see the other in a more complex, multifaceted way.

Question 24

Healthy Self

Answer 24

Two poles - 1. Healthy ambitions, assertiveness 2. Healthy ideals and values. How are these two poles combined to produce behavior.

Question 25

Parental Failures

Answer 25

Parental failure is the result of the parents’ own
psychological limitations. Repeated empathic failures by the parents, and the child’s responses to them are at the root of almost all psychopathology.

Question 26

Implications for Treatment (Self)

Answer 26

Need to understand early failures and provide an
environment in which the intrapsychic structures may
effectively develop. Is not crucial; the treatment creates a new experience for the patient.

Question 27

Healthy Self Requirements (Treatment)

Answer 27

A) Selfobjects who respond to and confirm the child’s innate
sense of vigor, greatness and perfection.

B) Child’s involvement with powerful others to whom the child
can look up and with whom he can merge as an image of
calmness, infallibility, and omnipotence.

C) Experiences with selfobjects who in their openness and
similarity to the child evoke a sense of essential likeness
between the child and themselves.

Question 28

Empathy (Kohut)

Answer 28

Kohut defined empathy as the capacity to think and feel

oneself into the inner life of another person. Mirroring, idealizing, twinship filled with empathy

Question 29

Deficit Model

Answer 29

Emphasizes environemental failures, typical byproduct results in aggression. Psychopathology develops as result of environmental failures; innate self as good. (Different from Freud who believed in an innate struggle where aggression and other negative impulses are inborn.)