Comment on Dr Sinha's Paper1

In his attempt to unify the concept of the ego, Sinha points up a unification of our present psychoanalytic thought with Indian psychology as expressed in Yoga.

Apfelbaum, in his paper "On Ego Psychology" (1966), reviews Freud's progressive development of a model of the mind. Studies of the ego by followers of Freud, principally Hartmann, have led to its taking its proper place in analytic theory. Hartmann's preference for organic analogies in ego psychology accounts for his assumption that since the drives are estranged from the external world, the ego must assume the role of the organ of adaptiveness as well as that of adaptation. Adaptation becomes reminiscent of self-preservation—the ego instinct of early psychoanalytic theory. The ego is thus rendered as an organ with a function rather than as a representation of a drive with an aim.

In treating the relationship between the ego and the id, Hartmann has been following the practice of contemporary structural theorists. They neglect the function of the superego and of internal objects, in the control, modification, and guidance of the impulses. They have considered ego control effective without the assimilated benevolent superego and thus neglect the dynamic forces which make such control possible. Reliance is thus placed on the organ analogy to supply the causal principle behind ego control. The superego being set aside, ego autonomy becomes more compelling, since without ego structure nothing is interposed between the impulse and the act.

The omission of the superego forced the structuralists to construct a psychoanalytic model which must rely wholly on explanation in terms of energy and structure. Thus structures must be built to develop into independent, autonomous, organ-like apparatuses so as to prevent their being swept away by mounting drive tensions.

Sinha's material gives the impression that the desire for self-control is at the root of Hindu manifestations as expressed in Yoga. In Yoga, the mana,