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.
Recent work on the development of ego functions in the conflict-free sphere is summarized by Lourie. In the area of autonomous ego functions, the oral, anal, and phallic phases are headlines for dozens of developmental stages for each autonomous ego function as newly discovered body parts and functions are experimented
with in terms of instinctual gratification and expression. Lourie also reviews current theories regarding the interplay between constitutional factors and early object relations. For example, early maternal object relations may be severely affected by a constitutional hypersensitivity to touch in the infant, which leads to adverse maternal reactions and damage to the earliest object ties, or may provide an early association of pain to object ties, a possible origin of masochism. Lourie describes the concept of 'organizers', such as early separation experiences as precursors of depression, the development of body image as a precursor to self-esteem, and toilet training which acts as an organizer of the infant's control system. This is an instructive contribution containing a good bibliography.