Toward a unified psychoanalytic theory: Foundations in a revised and expanded ego psychology

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE
Author/s Morris N. Eagle
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/2 Language Italian
Pages 14 P. 191-204 File size 314 KB
DOI 10.3280/PU2021-002001
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A corrected, revised and expanded ego psychology constitutes the strongest foundation for a uni-fied psychoanalytic theory of mind that is capable of integrating different psychoanalytic schools and also of assimilating and integrating relevant findings from non-psychoanalytic disciplines. The areas in which current ego psychology needs a correction and a revision include the ac-knowledgment of the role of object relations as a matrix of the development of ego functions, the relative autonomy of object relations from drives, an adequate account of the nature of interper-sonal understanding, and an adequate theory of affects with a recognition of their motivational primacy. The implications of a revised and expanded ego psychology are discussed also for the conceptions of psychopathology and approach to treatment. Finally, and importantly, it is shown that even from the perspective of Freudian theory the main goal of treatment as expressed in the motto Wo Es war, soll Ich werden " «Where id was, there shall ego be» (S. Freud, New Intro-ductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis [1932]. Standard Edition, XXII, p. 80) " is at least as much the expansion and enrichment of "the I", that is, of subjective experience, as the acquisition of insight and self-knowledge.

Keywords: Ego psychology; Psychoanalytic theory; Ego func-tions; Self-knowledge; Unification of psychoanalytic theory

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Morris N. Eagle, Verso una teoria psicoanalitica unificata: le basi di una Psicologia dell’Io ampliata e aggiornata in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 2/2021, pp 191-204, DOI: 10.3280/PU2021-002001