Meeting of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York

December 18, 1972. THE SELF-REPRESENTATION AND ITS ROLE IN NEUROSIS. Alan Eisnitz, M.D.

Dr. Eisnitz presented two clinical vignettes which illustrated the importance of attending to the contents and stability of the self-representation of each analysand and the maneuvers employed to protect it. The organization of the ego is likened to a gestalt in which certain function-complexes are more highly cathected than others and exert an organizing influence on other function-complexes of the ego. When the stability of the self-representation is threatened, defensive activity to effect repair is set in motion. The ego activity maintains the stability of the self-representation in part by shifting cathexis from one aspect of the self-representation to another and also by shifting energies attached to the self-representation to faculties which carry out ego activity aimed at guarding it against threats to it or bolstering approved views of the self. In this manner a narcissistically acceptable, stable self-representation is maintained.

Disturbances involving the self-representation are much more common in the neuroses than is generally recognized. This is especially true when the superego directs large amounts of aggressive energy against some aspect of the self-representation and when its stability is faulty to begin with. In the latter case, various narcissistic disturbances such as fusion fantasies, fetishistic denial, conversion symptoms, and obsessional doubting are often seen.

Dr. Eisnitz reviewed the development of self and object representation within the processes of self-object differentiation, the development of object relations, and the evolution of superego structure. His own material confirms the observations of others who have studied the connections between intense castration anxiety warded off fetishistically, early disturbances in object relations, and the instability of the self-representation.