Rudiments of the Ego

The most meaningful point of convergence of developmental research and psychoanalysis lies in ego psychology, more particularly in the development of the ego. While the most stimulating concepts of the earliest formative forces come from psychoanalysis, the nature of psychoanalysis as a research tool makes its use as an investigatory technique inappropriate to work with the neonate. In the presence of such stimulating concepts, the lack of verifiable data concerning the crucial early ego development has been deplored by many, and has turned sharp focus on the necessity for coordinated reconstructive and developmental research.

In his discussion of the import of psychoanalytic ego psychology, Kris (1950) points out that it "… re-emphasized the character of psychoanalysis as a psychology of adaptation, of learning, and clinical data have implemented these general assumptions as far as the child's earliest experiences are concerned." Actually, clinical data are most inadequate in terms of origins of ego function. Kris indicates this in noting the increasing research concern with the development of the ego, and the acceptance of the tendency to integrate observational data into the general flow of psychoanalytic thought. It thus appears that the earliest factors of ego development are beyond the powers of reconstructive psychoanalytic techniques, as they exist today.

Anna Freud (1954) has stated, "The rudiments of the ego, as they emerge gradually in the first half year of life, take their pattern from the environmental conditions which have left their imprint on the infant's mind by way of his early pleasure-pain experiences, the conditions themselves becoming internalized in the ego structure." Such a formulation is focused on a later stage of development, and begs the question of what precisely it is with which these environmental factors interact in the development