Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

February 14, 1961. THE FRAGMENTIZING FUNCTION OF THE EGO IN THE PSYCHOANALYTIC SESSION. Andrew Peto, M.D.

Dr. Peto's paper continues an investigation of the concept that the ego has a fragmentizing function which is a precursor of defenses and sublimation, is active in play, and can be seen in the dream work. In addition, it is essential to changes in modes of energy—i.e., desexualization and neutralization. The term 'fragmentation'

refers to ego units which carry certain affects and are coalesced into part-images, representing some aspect of the self. They consist of ego, superego, and drive elements. The dynamics of this fragmentation and recombination are governed, as in the dream, by primary process mechanisms. Freud, Ferenczi, Otto Sperling, and Jacobson have reported clinical observations in support of this concept. This fragmenting function can be seen particularly clearly in reactions to transference interpretations; it is due to revival of the original traumatic situation as well as the interlocking of parts of the past and of the present. Such fragmenting has been interpreted in the past as a manifestation of aggression, usually directed against part representations of the object.

A distinction should be made between the splitting of the ego, as described by Freud in the fetishist, and fragmentation as used here, which refers to the splintering of mental representatives. Fragmentizing is closely related to regression of the ego but precedes regression, which, however, promotes further fragmenting. It is also related to isolation. An objection might be made that the fragmentizing function is the result of failure of integration rather than a primary ego function. However, one can as well assume that two forces exist in equilibrium.

In a single session this fragmentizing and random transitory recoupling of partobject images occurs before a more stable picture emerges. In turn it becomes the pathway to more mature identifications and sublimations