Ego Integrity - Integrity of The Ego

Integrity of The Ego

In his structural theory, Sigmund Freud described the ego as the mediator between the id and super-ego and the external world. The task of the ego is to find a balance between primitive drives, morals, and reality, while simultaneously satisfying the id and superego. Freudians saw the ego as forming from separate "nuclei": 'A final ego is formed by synthetic integration of these nuclei, and in certain states of ego regression a split of the ego into its original nuclei becomes observable'.

The main concern of the ego is with safety, ideally only allowing the id's desires to be expressed when the consequences are marginal. Ego defenses are often employed by the ego when id behaviour conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos, or an individual's internalization of these morals, norms, and taboos. Freud noted however that in the face of conflicts with superego or id, it was always 'possible for the ego to avoid a rupture by submitting to encroachments on its own unity and even perhaps by effecting a cleavage or division of itself'. In a late, unfinished paper he examined how sometimes 'the instinct is allowed to retain its satisfaction and proper respect is shown to reality...at the price of a rift in the ego which never heals but increases as time goes on...a splitting of the ego'. Lacan would develop this line of thought, and maintain indeed that 'it is in the disintegration of the imaginary unity constituted by the ego that the subject finds the signifying material of his symptoms'.

From another standpoint, Object relations theory has explored 'the encounter with the "other" that threatens the ego's integrity', as when the object in question is lacking in 'its expected function as "container" of excitations'.

The word ego is taken directly from Latin where it is the nominative of the first person singular personal pronoun and is translated as "I myself" to express emphasis—it is a translation of Freud's German term "Das Ich", which in English would be "the I".