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Morris Eagle,1 one of our leading analyst-scholars, has written an important book that resurrects ego psychology from the theoretical dustbin where many believe it belonged. His formidable integrative capacities are on full display in his new book, and he succeeds admirably in demonstrating that—amongst the plethora of psychoanalytic perspectives—ego psychology provides the strongest basis for a theory of mind and the place for a unified theory of psychoanalysis that integrates multiple psychoanalytic schools. He supports his views with a stunning array of research, often from studies outside of psychoanalysis, and his discussion of the critiques of ego psychology from within psychoanalysis are clear and convincing.
To remind readers, the beginnings of ego psychology were outlined by Freud in his 1923 and 1926 papers, The Ego and the Id2 and “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety.”3 Summarizing his views in the New Introductory Lectures, Freud (4) suggested that we change our attention from “the repressed to the repressing forces” (p. 58). However, it is important to remember that in this same article Freud was, as it turns out, justifiably wary of how his introduction of ego psychology would be welcomed: “I must, however, let you know of my suspicion of this ego psychology will affect you differently from the introduction into the psychic underworld which preceded it” (p. 58). He went on to say:
I now believe that it is somehow a question of the nature of the material itself and of our being unaccustomed to dealing with it. In any case, I shall not be surprised if you show
All references to Eagle in this review are to this current book.
(1933). The dissection of the psychical personality. In Sigmund Freud: New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. New York: Norton, pp. 57-80.
Page 421yourselves even more reserved and cautious in your judgment than hithe