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For the purposes of the Index, the section which covers the various aspects of ego functioning has been divided into three separate Manuals: (a) General; (b) Reaction to Anxiety; and (c) Defences. In other words, two of the most crucial and central ego functions have been singled out and given special emphasis, with the remaining functions covered in the General Ego section.
This section is meant to provide an overall picture of a child's ego functioning, both normal and abnormal. The subheadings provided focus on those aspects which are most likely to provide important clues about the nature of a child's disturbance. They deal, for instance, with the Control of Drive Activity in order to give a picture of the strength or weakness of the controlling function as it may be reflected in inhibited or impulsive behaviour, in an inability to tolerate frustration, in acting out, in the irruption of primary process into secondary process thinking, etc. Other headings refer to functions such as Concentration, Integration, Intelligence, Language, Learning, Memory, Orientation, Perception, Thinking, etc. Ideally, therapists are expected to comment not only upon neurotic or more severe disturbances of any of these functions but also highlight areas of normal ego functioning which are not affected by a child's psychopathology.
Two headings merit special comment since they are included in both the General and the Defences sections. They are concerned with Identification and Sublimation respectively. It is in instances such as these, where a particular concept is used with slightly different shades of meaning in more than one section of the Index, that the Manual definitions given for each heading are of special importance for differentiating one meaning from another. Thus the text under the heading of Identification in the General Section of the Ego reads as follows:
(Covering certain usages of the terms Introjection and
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