The Dynamic Self in Psychoanalytic Psychology A Formulation

Following Hartmann's theoretical formulations, the self has been explored primarily as a body of self-representations coordinate to object representations; the dynamic organizations of the mind (the id-ego-superego systems) have been seen as impersonal (nonself) functions.

This paper attempts a conception of the id-ego-superego structures as self-functions in intimate relation to self-representations. Building on an integration of Piagetian and psychoanalytic object relations frameworks (event theory), it proposes that the earliest self-experience occurs in dynamic schemes of personally motivated interaction between self and nonself. These I-schemes lay the groundwork for both the dynamic and the representational aspects of the self: Their structure results in experience characteristic of the dynamic id and in their character as undifferentiated interactions provides the base for the development of self- and object representations. Development occurs by integration and differentiation in processes of conflict resolution. The paper traces these developments in outline as they lead to the transition in the dynamic self from id to ego organizations, and in the self-representations from part-selves and part-objects to a whole and individuated self in relation to whole objects.