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Out flew the web and floated wide,The mirror cracked from side to side,“The curse has come upon me,” criedThe Lady of Shalott.
While no real changes have taken place in the practical application of psychotherapy in the psychoneuroses and psychoses, there have been adopted by some analysts modifications of the earlier concepts which at first glance may seem to be at variance with some of the formerly accepted understandings of the mechanisms. These modifications have been in the direction of a division of what was formerly regarded as a single entity; more or less in keeping with Freud's three concepts; the ego, super—ego, and id. Through the recognition of this division and the subtle interplay of these three elements, it has been possible to extend the researches into the mental life to include various additional factors, as the corporal egoboundary, psychical ego—feeling, and the narcissistic cathexis boundary.
Federn presents this new trend in these words: “The structure of the ego, i.e., its division into institutions, the dynamics of these, their relation to the instincts, to the unconscious, even to the body, occupied us all. Here lies the test of Freud's theory of narcissism: does the libido merely actuate the ego or does it build it up?” He reaches the conclusion that the libido constructs the ego and he also advances the idea that the narcissistic capsule about the body can vary in strength and extent in both normal and pathological conditions.