“In the Neighborhood”: Aspects of a Good Interpretation and a “Developmental Lag” in Ego Psychology

Abstract

The significance of the conscious ego in the interpretive process has increasingly come under scrutiny. It is becoming clearer that the analyst's view of the conscious ego orients his interpretive approach, and subtly sets the goals of the analysis. At various times Freud championed the analytic importance of the conscious ego, and alternately rejected its significance. Hartmann's view of the ego stimulated research into a developmental line of the ego, while investigations of the ego in clinical psychoanalysis lagged far behind. The importance of the conscious ego in understanding resistances and levels of communication are explored.

On Learning to Inquire: Revisiting the Detailed Inquiry

“…There may be a gap between objective knowledge about inquiry and full awareness of its utility and value as a way of working in the analytic situation much as Fred Busch (1993) says there was between theoretical understanding and clinical applications of ego psychology.…”

Self‐disclosure ain't what it's cracked up to be, at least not yet

“…The above theory is usually presented in contrast to what is called "classical theory," which, as presented by most relational theorists, is a topographic reading of Freud's structural model, albeit for good reasons (Gray, 1982;Busch, 1992Busch, , 1993. There are, however a number of tenets of modern structural theory that speak to some of the variables to be considered when considering self-disclosure and its impact upon the analytic process.…”

“…In part, this seems to be the result of an ego in a regressed state in which thinking is dominated by pre-operational thought (Piaget, 1930). In part, it is a function of a regressive fault line based upon the time when conflicts were first formed (Busch, 1995a). The anxieties and dangers associated with certain thoughts and feelings coming to mind are unconsciously experienced as real, akin to the intensity of a child waking from a nightmare in which the boundary between the feeling of fear in the dream and the reality of his or her safety is not secure.…”

“…The anxieties and dangers associated with certain thoughts and feelings coming to mind are unconsciously experienced as real, akin to the intensity of a child waking from a nightmare in which the boundary between the feeling of fear in the dream and the reality of his or her safety is not secure. Thinking, at these times, is concrete, bound by immediate impressions, and limited to a "here and now, before the eye" reality (Busch, 1995a). Thus, in situations in which conflicts arise, fears quickly become real, and the thinking brought to bear on these conflicts is limited in scope, resulting in powerful resistances to certain thoughts and feelings being allowed into awareness.…”

“…The marginalization of the method of free association (Busch, 1994) has been an unfortunate consequence of the eschewal of an egopsychological perspective. The special significance of free association for working with unconscious resistances has become increasingly clear (Gray, 1982;Davison, Pray, and Bristol, 1990;Busch, 1992), while there has been an amplification of its role in the development of a self-analytic attitude as central to an analytic outcome rather than simply as a byproduct of the method (Busch, 1995b;Gray, 1994).…”