CONSIDERATION OF THE CONCEPT OF EGO AUTONOMY CALLS FOR A survey of the concept of ego in psychoanalysis. I shall focus on those points that are relevant to the development of my theme.

Psychoanalytic psychology has developed gradually since Freud's earliest writings and in great part by changes introduced by Freud himself, and more recently by Heinz Hartmann, Ernst Kris, and others. The changes are more evident in the increasing conceptualization of what has come to be called ego psychology.

In early psychoanalytic writings the concept of psychic activity was based on the dichotomy of consciousness and unconsciousness. Further, two different aspects of unconsciousness were postulated,