THE SEEMING CHANGE in the character of disorders now being presented to the analyst for treatment has directed attention from the oedipal material considered consonant with symptom neuroses to the pregenital phases and their relationship to characterological disorders. This has, quite naturally, been accompanied by a corresponding shift from interest in ego and superego functions to concern with primitive precursors of ego development. Feeling that these notable extensions in analytic perimeters tend to neglect later developmental events, Novey chooses to look again at the superego by exploring the nature of later "additions" to the structure, the so-called ego-ideal. Rejecting the idea that the superego is fixed at the resolution of the oedipal conflict, Novey separates the superego from the ego-ideal on a functional as well as a genetic basis. He regards the ego-ideal as: dependent upon both early and later objects for identification; as an institution related to both ego and superego in function; and as differing from superego through its ego-syntonicity. Throughout, his emphasis is upon the psychic processes of identification, introjection, and sublimation.-EDITOR
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