(P/B) THE EGO IDEAL

Παρουσίαση

What basis is there in Freudian psychoanalysis for hope, for a positive vision? At a time when attempts are being made to bring psychoanalysis to bear upon group process and upon social, cultural and political issues, the meaning of the ego ideal' is of considerable importance.
Like all of Freud's concepts, that of the ego ideal was an evolving one. At times it was merely an alternative for the superego, but it came to refer to positive, hopeful, aspiring components within Freud's structural model of the psyche. It therefore complemented the punitive, expressive, negative superego.
Recent debates have drawn sobering attention to the role of narcissism in culture and to the suspension of individual responsibility in group processes. In Chasseguet-Smirgel's careful exposition of the concept of the ego ideal, she locates her analysis short of pessimism. She explores the short cuts that are available to the psyche and traces the longer, more painful path to maturity.
She develops in her own way Freud's view that people are forever seeking to regain a lost state of perfection, the state in which they were their own ideal - 'primary narcissism'. The ideal ego is the substitute for this perfection which the ego is trying to rejoin. The quest lies at the basis of the most sublime accomplishments, as well as of the most ill-fated mistakes, of the human mind.
The book includes chapters on the following aspects of the ego ideal: perversion, genitality, being-in-love, groups, sublimation in the creative process, reality testing, the superego. (From the book jacket)

Περιεχόμενα

Translator's Note
Author's Note
Introduction by Christopher Lasch
Author's Introduction
I The Ego Ideal and Perversion
II The Development of the Ego Ideal
III The Ego Ideal, Being-in-Love and Genitality
IV The Ego Ideal and the Group
V The Ego Ideal, Sublimation and the Creative Process
VI The Ego Ideal and the Ego's Submission to Reality Testing
VII The Superego and the Ego Ideal
VIII By Way of Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index