You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
An attempt is made to define the hard core problem in psychotherapy as deriving from a weak, frightened, infantile ego hiding behind a false self. The primary drive is to become a person, the impediment being residual internalized bad objects. The struggle to force the weak ego to face life causes psychosomatic illness and tensions. Heightened sexual and aggressive drives arise merely as covers for ego weakness; it is preferable to be bad than to be weak.
The terminology in which these concepts are described are Fairbairn's: id is libidinal ego, reality ego is central ego, and superego is antilibidinal ego. The latter acts to repress the libidinal ego, which is not the derivative of sexual and aggressive drives but a structural part of the psyche that is deprived, frustrated, and thus enraged, helpless, and aware of its weakness. The focal problem of therapy is to overcome the antilibidinal ego's repression of the weak, dependent libidinal ego. The central ego fears dreamless sleep, which is a regression; therefore dreams are a defense against regression and serve to maintain central ego integrity. Insomnia likewise is a defense against regression into the sleep state.