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This paper presents a series of thoughts on several questions. What type of raw material in the id lends itself to transformation into ego structure? How are condensation, displacement, lack of contradiction, and timelessness and spacelessness energized by the unbound energy of the id, subdued and utilized in the formation of ego functions? Is it necessary to assume primary autonomy of the ego, as Hartmann and others believe, to understand congenital differences among egos? Or is it possible to trace peculiarities of the ego to inborn trends of the id?
The first part of the paper surveys the main functions of the ego. Clinical illustrations show the complexity of the components of the ego and their interaction with each other as well as with the id and with reality. The author concludes that exploration of the development of basic ego functions (Hartmann's conflict-free sphere) and of early stages of defense mechanisms might help to provide an answer to the questions posed. Speculations on the origin of the controlling functions of the ego from the conservative trend of the id are mentioned briefly and set aside as possibly too farfetched.
The second part of the paper attempts to reconstruct the development of early ego functions from their sources in the id. Early reactions to tensions follow the pattern of the primary process. Early unspecific responses become specific under the impact of specific demands of reality. Bodily equipment present at birth, and amplified by maturation, can be used by the id in a disorderly fashion, by the ego in a controlled one. An infant insists on 'condensation' when it sucks its fingers while trying to drink from the bottle. Limitations of time and space imposed by the nursing situation force the child to modify such a primitive model into a higher form of condensation, used in the conceptualization of the nursing experience as a whole. Similarly unspecific displacement becomes the foundation both for basic ego functions,