Dr. Geoff Goodman
ext. 4277
ggoodman@liu.edu
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Course Website:
http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/ggoodman/home.htm
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Heinz Hartmann’s ego psychology model
o Concept of “change of function”—behavior originating at one point
in development may serve an entirely different function later on
• Cleanliness might serve a different psychological function in adulthood
then in childhood.
• Secondary autonomy—behavior achieving autonomy from its childhood
instinctual origins
• Genetic fallacy—assumption that adult behaviors serve the same
function as in childhood
• Splitting and identity diffusion might be related to adolescent trauma
o Apparatuses of primary ego autonomy—ego mechanisms that do not
evolve out of id frustration
• Perception
• Memory
• Motility
o Conflict-free sphere—part of the ego that operates independently of
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the id
Frustration of drives contributes to organization of the ego
Average expectable environment—importance of actual parents in
psychosexual and psychosocial development—adaptation versus
maladaptation
Adaptation to what kind of environment or culture?
Synthetic function of the ego—emerging components and functions
come to be linked, forming the ego (coherently functioning
organization)
Content of intrapsychic conflict (oral, anal, phallic, oedipal) not
relevant in comparison with the ego’s relative autonomy from the id
o Symptoms—compromise formations among agencies of the world
(primarily id and ego)
• Drive derivative—personal childhood wish for gratification
• Unpleasure in the form of anxiety or depressive affect
• Fear of object loss
• Fear of loss of object’s love
• Castration
• Defense, which functions to minimize unpleasure
• Manifestations of superego functioning—guilt, self-punishment,
remorse, and atonement
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Psychic development within the structural model
o Erikson—eight stages of psychosocial development
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Trust vs. mistrust (0-18 mos.)
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (18 mos.-3y ears)
Initiative vs. guilt (3-5 years)
Industry vs. inferiority (5-11 years)
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Identity vs. role confusion (11-18 years)
Intimacy vs. isolation (18-40 years)
Generativity vs. stagnation (40-65 years)
Ego integrity vs. despair (65-death)
Shift from drive theory to interpersonal theory with caregiver-child dyad
at center
o Spitz
• Shifts in psychological organization are marked by the emergence of
new behaviors and new forms of affective expression
• Self-regulation—important function of theory
• Mother’s emotion expression serves a soothing or containing function
• Infant then uses the mother’s signaling device to indicate safety
• Infant later uses the mother’s emotional response and uses his or her own
emotional reaction as a signal of safety
• Noted presence of depression in young children
o Jacobsen
• Caretaker behavior determines quantity of good and bad valences of
self and object representation
• Maturation and caregiver behavior determine differentiation between
self and object-representation
• Superego regulates self-esteem and behavior
o Loewald
• Drives are inherently related to and organized with object relations
• Development of the psyche occurs through disorganization and
reorganization at a higher level (e.g., pregnancy, parenthood)
• All mental activity is relational
• Internalization (learning) is the basic psychological process that propels
development
• Oedipal conflict reflects the emerging capacity for self-reflection
• Psychic separateness is the price for reflective self-awareness
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General features of the model
o Regressions result from interagency conflicts that the ego cannot
resolve
o Ego’s failure results in symptom formation through compromise with
other agencies (id and superego)
• Intensification of guilt
• Intensification of drive demands
• Inappropriateness of these demands in relation to the external world
o Pathogenic sequence
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Frustration
Regression
Internal incompatibility
Signal anxiety
Defense against regression
• Return of the repressed material
• Compromise and symptom formation
o Ego restrictions can cripple psychic functioning
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The structural model of the neurosis
o Conversion hysteria—compromise achieves dramatic representation
in somatic form and reflects an oral or phallic fixation
o Obsessional neurosis—ego binds anal sadistic and aggressive drive
derivatives into forms of secondary process thinking (e.g.,
rumination, obsessional doubt)
o Phobias—fear is external but may reflect quite similar unconscious
developmental concerns (use of projection as defense)
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The structural theory of personality disorder
o Character neurosis—similar to neurosis except that compromise
formations are not split off from the ego (ego-syntonic symptoms)
o Evidence suggest real differences between character disorder and
character type—underlying processes are different
o Personality disorder—ego functions are impaired
• Reality testing impaired
• Anxiety tolerance impaired
• Stable defenses impaired
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Model of borderline personality disorder
o Ego functions impaired by trauma
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Integration (synthetic function of ego)
Concept formation
Judgment
Realistic planning
Defending against eruption into conscious thinking of id impulses and
their fantasy elaborations
o Identity diffusion—deficiency in temporal continuity of self-
experience and social group of reference
o Regressive defense against deeply disturbing oedipal issues
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Structural theory of antisocial personality disorder
o Failure of progression from pleasure principle to reality principle
o Malformation of superego
o Causes of obstacle to renunciating pleasure principle
• Deprivation
• Internalization of poor parental norms
• Ego keeping superego at a distance and therefore unable to control
impulses
• Superego bribed by the ego
• Superego lacunae–gaps in moral reasoning because of the parents’
unconscious wish to act out forbidden impulses
• Singer’s tripartite model
• Drive disturbance (e.g., stealing to undo impotence and castration)
• Disturbances of ego functions (heightened sensitivity to displeasure,
disturbed reality testing, inability to deny action by fantasy)
• Corruptible, defective superego
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Structural model of the psychoses
o Profoundly disturbed early ego development
o Regression to very early, normal functioning
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Drives no longer viewed as firmly anchored to
developmental stages
Failure to resolve psychological conflicts in the domain of
wishes and ideas causes somatic distress and not vice
versa (e.g., sex addiction)
o Addiction can sensitize the wanting system and create a drive
related to craving
o Dreaming and craving experienced in addictions share the same
dopaminergic neural pathway
o Ventral tegmental area of brain—neural structure that most closely
fits Freud’s concept of instinctual drive states