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Freud's formulations regarding the ego, followed by Hartmann's monograph on the ego and the problem of adaptation, opened the way to study differences and parallels in the discoveries in experimental and developmental psychology. These include the work of Piaget, new reports of Soviet psychology, recent developments in Western psychology, and the studies of Murphy based, in part, on a series of sixty normal children.
The author surveys the process of growth and adaptation from birth to puberty. The basic requirement is the achievement of smooth organic functioning as a prerequisite for the stable positive mood-level sometimes described as bliss or narcissistic pleasure in the early weeks of life. 'Sensitive phases' or periods of emerging drives and the capacity for communication of wants, needs, frustrations, pleasure, and unhappiness at evoking appropriate responses from the environment contribute to a sense of well being and trust. At each phase of development multiple threats in meeting basic needs result in disequilibrium with an upsurge of dependency needs, a sense of loss, and forms of separation anxiety. Affecto-motor functions and integrative functions of the ego are shaped in functional interaction of drive and autonomous ego factors.