Finished revision!....Dec. 20th, 2011
Man's psychology of defense is very similar to his physiology/biology/bio-chemistry of defense....Same basic type of 'modus operandi' at work....
When we talk about 'the ego splitting in the process of defense'.....we are talking about the ego splitting for the perceived purpose of both 'functional adaptive advantage', and at the same time, for the purpose of internal and/or external defense...
Before we go on to talk about any others, let us list eight primary 'ego-functions' of perceived adaptive advantage and/or internal and/or external defense:
1. flight;
2. fight;
3. submission and/or co-operation;
4. let's call 'narcissistic-hedonistic activities and/or escapism';
5. let's call for now 'covert operations';
6. let's call 'righteous ethical-moral restraint';
7. let's call 'nurturing encouragement';
8. let's call 'integrative, final, executive decisons'
Now, from years of research in clinical psychology, particularly what in psychoanalysis is called 'object relations', we learn that people 'introject' or 'internalize' their most important childhood relationships, particularly with their parents, their siblings, their closest friends, their closest relatives, and/or their other role models....relationships that may be 'authoritarian', 'co-operative', 'competitive', 'antagonistic', and so on.....
From all of this work, I get the first part of my QDP 'model of the psyche' that now looks like this:
1. The Nurturing Superego;
2. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Superego;
3. The Distancing Superego;
4. The Righteous-Rejecting Superego;
5. The Co-operative (Approval-Seeking) Underego;
6. The Narcissistic-Hedonistic Underego;
7. The Distancing Underego;
8. The Righteous-Rejecting Underego;
9. The Central (Mediating, Executive) Ego.
From these different types of 'ego-functions' and 'ego-defenses' that come about through 'the splitting of the ego in the process of defense', we can have a relatively 'functional, harmonious ego' if all 'ego-states' are basically 'getting along with each other' and moving together in a relatively 'healthy, constructive direction; alternatively, if different ego states are at war with each other, the results can be more dysfunctional and destructive....
The inside of the personality, for the most part, is going to look like a snap shot of the childhood 'transference' factors that make up the person's 'Memory-Learning-Transference (MLT)' Template which are then 'projected upwards' into the different more 'conscious ego states' in the personality, as listed above..
The Central Executive Ego can be divided into two parts, in integrative Freudian-Jungian terminology: 1. the outward bound, socially directed 'Personna'; and 2. the 'covert, internal operations' going on within 'The (Conscious) Shadow-Id Vault'.
Sometimes above consciousness, sometimes below consciousness, we have:
10. 'The Symbolic Image Maker and Dream/Nightmare Weaver';
11. 'The Memory-Learning-Transference (MLT) Template';
12. 'The Shadow-Id' and 'The (Subconscious) Shadow-Id Vault' ('unrestrained' vs. 'restrained' Shadow-Id formations and activities);
13. The Internal Abyss of Perceived Existential Self-Defeat (guilt, anxiety, panic, anger, rage, depression, grief, mortification, distancing...unworked through...)
14. The Internal 'Mountain' of Perceived Existential Self-Contact, Self-Congruence, Self-Actualization and Self-Achievement;
15. The Genetic, Potential, Existential Self
As a humanistic-existentialist in the mold of Erich Fromm, I personally view the 'purpose' of life as the existential self-contact, self-congruence, self-actualization, and self-achievement of our Central Ego in the service of our Genetic, Potential Existential Self as well as the encouragement and support of others in the pursuit of their particular individual goals, hopefully towards both self and social interest as well, without anyone having to use or exploit another person as a means of achieving their own personal goals....Fairness to self, fairness to others....a code of ethics that seems to be largely lost within a paradigm of largely unbounded Corporate, Gorvernment, and Cultural Narcissism.
You can be a 'religious' humanistic-existentialist, an 'agnostic' humanistic-existentialist, an 'atheist' humanistic-existentialist, a 'pantheist' humanistic-existentialist', a 'deist' humanistic-existentialist -- it's all the same to me...
Just two main 'ethical points of reference' that are important in my books: a workable balance between 1. compassion; and 2. accountablity -- both to ourselves and to others; in Adler's terminology, a balance between 'self and social interest'....
Merry Christmas everyone !
-- dgb, Dec. 20th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
