Psychic Energy and Mechanisms of Defense

This discussion will address itself to three problems facing psychoanalytic theory today. These are questions of quantity and source of neutralized psychic energy, and the basic mechanisms of defense. It will not be the purpose of this paper to evaluate the current controversial thinking in regard to these areas, but rather to make certain speculative postulates based on observational and experimental studies of neonates and infants. However, some of the basic assumptions upon which this communication rests should be stated at this time.

The first of these is that in psychoanalysis, the ego is defined in terms of functionally related mental processes. As Freud (1923) stated, "the ego is a cohesive organization of mental processes," a statement most readily understood in terms of a mature ego. While Freud took cognizance of inborn ego factors, it was Hartmann (1939) who developed the concept of a "conflict-free sphere of ego development" with a clearer recognition of an inborn "ego constitution." Within this sphere, Hartmann places such ego functions as "perception, intentionality, object-comprehension, thinking, language, recall phenomena, and productivity" as well as motor development. In regard to the newborn, Hartmann felt that these inborn ego apparatuses cause a state of "adaptation to exist before processes of adaptation begin to function." Contrary to lower animal forms, adaptation and survival in man does not rest in instinctual behavior but rather in the ego. Thus the ground is laid for the concept of a functioning, rudimentary ego in the neonate. This arises from the "undifferentiated phase," as proposed by Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein (1946), from which, to quote Rapaport's summary