EGO PSYCHOLOGY
Anna Freud, Heinz Hartmann & Margaret Mahler
What is Ego Psychology?
Earliest branch of Freud’s theory in the psychodynamic direction
Further exploration of ego (its development and tasks)
Ego was not solely internal and pre-determined (as Freud believed) but influenced by the
environment & caregivers
Expansion of understanding of SELF:
o less prominence to the id & impulses
o more and more influence on the environment
o remain committed to the drives of libido and aggression as the ultimate motivators of
human behavior.
Anna Freud & PSYCHOANALYSIS SOCIETY
British Psychoanalysis Society split in the 1940s - two schools of supervisors. The split still
exists.
Group A Group B
Melanie Klein Anna Freud
Early Relational Focus Early Ego Psychology
Later, a third “independent” group emerged of those who did not choose either side between
Anna Freud and Klein. This group became known as the British Middle School.
From its ranks came the Object Relations Theorists.
ANNA FREUD – 1895-1982
Sixth child of Sigmund Freud
In analysis with her father
No university training, but attended meetings with her father
By 1925, she was giving constant care to her father for cancer of the mouth and became his
personal secretary.
From 1925 until 1940 she presented her father’s papers
Had considerable sanction to introduce change in psychoanalysis because of her role
Eventually refocused the field - even though she did not realize it.
Melanie Klein and Anna Freud worked with children
Change in focus of therapy were necessitated by the child focus
1. No free association
2. No dream analysis
3. Transference cannot be used in the same way
Instead of the reliance on interpretation and use of the transference, a relationship had to be
formed with the therapist and child.
Thus, Anna’s work had a different focus, more future oriented. Anna rather focused on
adaptation and building healthy inner structure (ego) of the person.
The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (A. Freud, 1936)
Observed how children dismiss unwelcomed facts (denial, projection, introjection)
Development of (unconscious) defenses to help navigate psychic and environmental conflicts
and displeasure/pain
Cataloged defenses and linked them to developmental psychosexual stages
Analyst takes an “equidistant stand from the id, the ego, and the superego” (A. Freud, 1936, p.
28)
Analyst observes and interprets the ego’s defenses as its attempts to manage conflicts in its
effort to protect itself
Anna Freud: REFORMULATION OF CONCEPT OF EGO
Freud had previously described the ego/id relationship as a horse & rider. Ego steered the
horse but steered it in the direction the horse wanted to go anyway (Id was powerful).
Anna Freud described the ego as having influence such that it could steer the “horse” of the id in
ways of the ego’s own intention.
Anna expanded the functions of the ego in Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, 1936. Ego
was to defend the self against anxiety from instinctual strivings (id), from reality experiences
(ego), and from guilt and associated fantasy (superego)
Anna thought therapy could focus on EGO & SUPEREGO, too.
Sigmund Freud’s ego concept was that ego was a defense against the drive.
Anna (& Heinz Hartmann who followed her) saw the ego as a capacity for adaptation, reality
testing, and defense to deal with both the inner world of urges and drives and the outer world of
reality and its demands.
Ego Psychology: Ego Functions
Cognitive Functions
Reality Testing
Impulse Control
Object Relations
Affect Regulation
Defenses
HEINZ HARTMANN
Theoretician more than a clinician
Viennese physician and psychiatrist
Entered analysis with S. Freud in 1934
Left Austria in 1938 fleeing the Nazi’s and came to the US in 1941
Wrote somewhat like a constitutional scholar interpreting the original Sigmund Freud
documents
President of International Psychoanalytic Association in the 1950’s (eventually was voted
lifetime president).
Father of Ego Psychology
Ego Psychology
Beyond the ego’s emergence from the stresses of forbidden drives and anxiety-creating
conflicts, children are born with innate potential that unfolds naturally in a receptive
environment.
o Where Freud posited sublimation, a rechanneling of libido and aggression, Hartmann
posited neutralization, an actual transformation of these drives by the ego into a third,
derivative drive toward adaptive functioning
o Like a hydroelectric plant transforms raging, muddy river into clean, usable electric
energy
o Analyst helps neutralize conflicts and facilitates the actualization of innate potential,
which includes capacities of motor coordination, memory, attention, language, and
concentration.
Heinz Hartmann: Reformulation of concept of ego
Freud’s ego concept was that ego makes adaptations, like drive derivatives, in order to allow the
pleasure seeking and aggressive drives to be satisfied in socially acceptable ways.
Hartmann believed the ego adapts because is is an organ of adaptation for survival (Darwinian
influence) and adds a focus on general human development (a distinction from Freud’s primary
focus on psychopathology)
Hartmann’s Ego Functions
Motility
Organization of perception
Protective barrier against excessive stimulation
Reality testing
Thinking, intelligence
Translation of thought into intention
Inhibition, ability to delay
Signal anxiety, recognition of anxiety
Defenses
Anticipation of future goals
Time perception, sequencing
Character formation, personality synthesis
Synthetic ability
Ego origins - Freud
Per Freud - Ego is formed out of the ID
Since ego was formed from the id, he believed that all ego energy was at root libidinal or aggressive.
ID ID EGO
Ego Origins - Hartmann
Ego and Id formed from an “undifferentiated matrix”
Since he believed the the ego originated from an undifferentiated matrix, Hartmann’s ego has
other types of energy (still libidinal & aggression) like ego energy, and neutralized energy
Conflict-free ego Sphere: Some aspects of ego are devoted to maturation or development, such
as language, thinking or perception (these functions would develop naturally in a suitable
environment)
ID
Undifferentiated Matrix
EGO
RENE SPITZ - 1887-1974
Born and studied in Vienna
Worked in Paris from 1932-1939 when he came to the US
Principal work–Hospitalism (1940)
Studied orphaned infants whose physical needs were met but without any ongoing nurturing
interaction. He noted that they became withdrawn, depressed, and sickly and many eventually
died.
Theorized from his work that the mother functions as an auxiliary ego, shielding her infant from
overstimulation, soothing him and regulating his experience, until his own ego capacity
develops to take on these functions.
MARGARET MAHLER 1897-1985
Child analyst and pediatrician
Trained in Vienna, practiced in New York, beginning in 1938.
Took Spitz’s work and applied it to families and psychotic children
Most noted work, (1976) co-authored with Pine and Bergmann, is The Psychological Birth of the
Human Infant.
Developed a theory of early development that diverged slightly from the strict drive model and
allowed a stronger role for relationships
Building on the importance of the environment introduced by Hartmann, Mahler said the
mother plays a key role in providing an environment conducive for healthy development of the
self.
Separation-Individuation Process
Autism (1st month)
Symbiosis (2-5 mos. old)
Separation
o Differentiation/Hatching (5-9 mos. old)
o Practicing (9-15 mos. old)
o Rapprochement (16-24 mos. old)
Consolidation/Object Constancy
Preoedipal issues = Borderline psychopathology
Borderline category between neurosis and psychosis
Autism Phase
Lasts for about the first month of life.
Very limited awareness of external objects
Child is seen as functioning as a closed system with focus mostly on internal physiological
homeostasis, either its presence or lack thereof.
In her latter years, she dropped this phase.
Symbiosis Phase
Lasts from 2-4 months
Increased awareness and sensitivity to external stimuli
Smiling response to the human face occurs
Child behaves as if it is one with mother
Separation Phase
Differentiation Subphase
o Lasts from 4-5 months until about 10 months
o Begins with a process Mahler calls “hatching” characterized by the child’s being more
consistently alert when awake.
o Infant may start to explore mother during this period, pulling at her hair, glasses, etc.
o Margaret Mahler
o Separation Phase
Practicing Subphase
o Lasts from about 10 months until 15 months
o Begins with the acquisition of crawling
o Baby is able to move some distance from mother, but mother is a “home base” and remains
very essential for “emotional refueling.”
o Margaret Mahler
o Separation Phase
Rapprochement Subphase
o From 15 to 24 months of age
o The child who has been able to function at a distance from his mother, comes to realize that
contrary to his previous sense of omnipotence, he is actually a very small person in a very
big world.
o Margaret Mahler
o Separation Phase
o Toddler becomes more aware that mother is a separate person and she is not always
available to help him.
o Child is ambivalent, because he needs help, but very much wants to be independent.
Frustrating for mothers with the back and forth of behavior.
o Important foundation for later life issues
Separation-Individuation Process
Consolidation/Object Constancy Phase
Usually between 2 and 3 years of age
The main tasks are the development of a stable sense of self and a sense of the mother as an
ongoing internal positive presence.
Similar to Piaget’s Object Permanence—Mother still exists even when she is not present
physically
Object Constancy
Holding the object inside requires some ability to resolve their good and bad aspects. Ie. The
good mom that cares and soothes and the bad mom that sometimes does not come.
If there is too much of the bad mom, or if mom is particularly inconsistent, this stage is very
poorly negotiated.
Separation-Individuation
This process is very useful clinically.
It is often useful with young parents.
Some would say that the separation-individuation process goes on for a second time during
adolescence, so it is also useful for working with teens and their parents.
EDITH JACOBSON - 1897-1978
Physician and psychoanalyst
Originally a member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Society
Came to NY in 1938 after release from a Nazi prison and an escape from Germany
Wrote The Self and the Object World, 1964.
Warm, empathic clinician struggling to remain true to the drive model, while also revising it to
be more relational
She theorized that the libido and aggressive drives are not innate, but that they develop in ways
affected by external relational influences.
Baby’s temperament + mother’s personality + how we feel about ourselves and others = the
makeup of the drive
This was a very significant change in the core motivations of life proposed by Freud.
Summary of Ego Psychology
Began with Anna Freud and then Hartmann as they developed the concept of the ego as having
domains not under the influence of the id. The ego came to relate more to reality and thus to
persons.
Margaret Mahler developed the concept of separation-individuation and eventually added the
concept of a third drive toward individuation or maturation.
Jacobson said the drives were not innate, but were formed in a relational context.
Contributions of Ego Psychology
The Ego became the focus of analysis as opposed to the Id.
Some ego development exists apart from efforts to resolve conflict and frustration
Patient and therapist are allies in the therapy process, as opposed to being somewhat
adversarial.
Learning to observe ego functioning is a therapeutic aim in therapy.
Analysis took a slightly more relational bent.
