DYNAMIC OR EGO PSYCHOLOGIES
To the student of personality theory , it may seem strange to group to -
gether the theories of Freud, Jung, Rogers, Murray , Loevinger, Maslow—
even Allport—as ego psychologies (in contrast to trait psychologies),but from a certain perspective it is perfectly reasonable. All these writersassume that individuals possess a variety of different and potentiallyconflicting tendencies, and all assume that the major business ofpersonality theory is to explain how and why all these impulses arechanneled and directed into the routine, purposeful, and occasionallyirrational behavior we engage in, or the stream of consciousness we ex -
perience. Although the term selfis sometimes used, egois the word
most frequently chosen to represent the aspect of the mind or personal -
ity that does the organizing.
We cannot hope in a few pages to provide adequate sketches of the
theories we will be discussing—dozens of textbooks in personality the-ory do that already . We would, however, like to try to indicate some ofthe features they share that set them apart from trait theories. For ourpurposes we will emphasize the similarities of ego psychologies andminimize the profound differences, which are perhaps better known.
For Sigmund Freud (1933), the ego develops as a mediator among
fierce and primitive instinctual impulses (the id), punitive prohibitionsinternalized in childhood (the superego), and the social realities of theworld. It operates through a series of tricks called defense mechanisms
and is ultimately very much at the mercy of the powers it attempts tocontrol. This division of the psyche is at least as old as Plato, who wroteof appetite, passion, and reason as the elements of human nature, andwho held that the ideal was the harmonious balancing of these parts.Freud’s framework also seems to parallel the different emphases thathave distinguished psychological schools in this century , since it ac -
knowledges the importance of inborn tendencies and environmental
pressures, as well as the capacity of cognitive processes—reason andindividual choice—to moderate both these influences. In short, it seemslikely that every complete psychology will have to deal with these issuesin some form; one of Freud’s major contributions was to formulate the20th-century version of an age-old question. Many important personal -
ity theorists have made their primary contributions by modifying previ -
ous descriptions of the nature or significance of one of the three struc -
tures.140 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD