Developmental and Etiological Factors in the Treatment of Character Disorders With Archaic Ego Function

This paper deals with my comparative observations on early child development and the interaction between verifiable factors of congenital endowment and the family milieu—particularly the mother's emotional attitudes toward the infant and her style of nurturing it.^8-25

With increased attention on the part of the therapeutic community to phenomena associated with archaic ego processes, it no longer seems an exaggeration to hypothesize that the infant's first sensorial contact with the mother in the pre-ego stage serves as the nuclear model for the evolving ego.31 While we are aware that the notions of imprinting in homo sapiens of genetic traits and of psychobiological influences in utero are scientifically controversial, we have found no suitable descriptive phrase other than “similar to imprinting” to identify the first sensorial contact. This concept is clinically applicable with respect to the early patterning of infant behavior, as revealed by the Fries research (1928 to present) and later supported by the findings of others, notably Bartanieff and Davis,1 Benjamin,2 Kestenberg,27 Kestenberg and Marcus,28 and Lorenz.31 In crediting these factors we also bear in mind, first, that the etiological frontier in psychoanalysis has already extended beyond the oedipal phase into the preoedipal realm;3, 4 second, that humans as well as lesser animals are vulnerable to forcible conditioning (e.g., brainwashing, sensory deprivation, and