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Freud considers the ego as the agency of defense within the psychic apparatus, differentiated from the id through the id's exposure to external reality. The ego has to defend itself against id, external reality, and superego. On the other
hand, in his elaboration of the concept of primary narcissism, Freud comes to recognize that at that early stage, psychologically speaking, ego and reality are still a unitary whole from which both become gradually differentiated as separate structures. Nevertheless, Freud understands even the synthetic function of the ego as basically a defense mechanism, and reality, in psychoanalytic theory, is essentially a hostile force, antagonistic to the psychic apparatus.
The original identity of ego and reality is connected, in experiential terms, with the original oneness of infant and mother. The view of reality as a hostile antagonist is connected with the emphasis on the hostile, castrating role of the father prevailing in psychoanalytic descriptions of the psychosexual development which culminates in the Oedipus situation. The concept of reality as antagonistic to the individual is expressed in the predominant role which the hostile father figure plays in psychoanalytic theory.
The synthetic-integrative function of the ego must derive from the original identity between ego and reality in the primary narcissistic position, when there are as yet no boundaries between the two.
In order to further the understanding of the development of ego-reality integration, an attempt is made to clarify the elements entering into the formation of the Oedipus complex. It is pointed out that a profoundly ambivalent relationship develops between child and mother, as well as between child and father. Neither is the relationship with the mother wholly positive, nor is that with the father only hostile-submissive. While the original identity with the mother develops gradually into a libidinal tension system between child and mother—into a positive l