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Apfelbaum disputes the contention that the increased clinical and theoretical emphasis on ego functioning has left the assumptions regarding instinctual drive intact. Since the ego of the tripartite psychic structure devised by Freud in The Ego and the Id has no intrinsic energy of its own, it becomes difficult to
explain the energy used by the ego in nonpathological, goal-directed strivings. Following Freud, contemporary ego theorists have tried to preserve instinctual drive separate from ego structure by using the concepts of primary and secondary ego autonomy but still employing energies derived from the id.
Grauer has postulated that, since ego and id stem from a common matrix, the energies with which they operate can also be assumed to derive from that matrix, and therefore the hypothesis of a necessary prior process of neutralization can be dispensed with. This tendency toward the construction of a primary ego energy diminishes the importance of the id as the only source of energy. Difficulties also arise because the analogy of the psychic apparatus to a thermodynamic structure and the stressing of quantitative factors fail to account for clinical observations where an apparatus of secondary autonomy, such as altruism, seems to be more than a derivative of conflict between the ego and the id.