Ego States: the Backbone of Type

[Eric B]

I had been citing a paper called “Ego Surrender” by Zimberoff and Hartman for its teaching on “ego states”, but then I’m over by one of my wife’s bookcases one day, and see she has a whole book on the subject, Ego States: Theory and Therapy, John G. and Helen H. Watkins (who had worked with the Hillside Strangler, who had “multiple personalities” which are basically ego states with a maladaptive level of differentiation or dissociation) W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1997

The whole concept of “ego states” is from Austrian psychologist Paul Federn, who articulated a “Two Energy Theory”, which basically correspond to the “energy flow” that determines i/e “attitude” in JCF theory (called object or ego “cathexis“).

On p.17-8 he describes the ego structure itself:

THE EGO BOUNDARY

The boundaries between the core ego, the various ego states, and the external world constituted the sense organs of the self, permitting one to discriminate between external and internal reality. These boundaries are flexible, expanding and contracting. If an item contacts the external face of a boundary (that which faces the external world), the person can distinguish that item as real. If it contacts the internal boundary, then it is sensed as emanating from one’s self.

CONSCIOUSNESS

Federn originally accepted Freud’s tripartite division of the personality into id, ego, and super-ego. However, he apparently did not try to explain why something should be conscious or unconscious. It is interesting to extend his two-energy theory and attempt a rationale for consciousness.

Let us think of experiential existence as being the impact of object on subject, of a not-me on the self. The impact of light from an external source on the retina initiates the experience of vision. Yet the impact must be of a certain magnitude for this to take place. If the light is too faint or the retina too weak, then the object will not be seen. Translating this into Federn’s two-energy system, an object-cathected stimulus must strike an ego-cathected receptor within an individual for him to perceive it; but if the magnitude of the impact is below a minimal threshold, then he is not aware of it. The stimulus and ego-cathected ego boundaries are not strong enough to evoke the experience we call conscious. However, such lightly cathected processes occur and can still influence the individual’s behavior; we call them unconscious.

The amount of object and ego cathexes invested into the impact will determine whether or not the result will be conscious and whether it is minimally or strongly experienced consciously, hence the vividness of our attention to it. If we are tired and our available ego cathexis is low, we can miss much of a conversation, although the conversants may be talking in a sufficiently loud voice. We just won’t hear them. The deeply involved sleeper, with almost all the cathexis removed from his ego boundaries, may require the long and loud ringing of an alarm clock to bring him back to consciousness. On the other hand, the hunter who is highly alert(whose ego boundaries are strongly cathected) attends to the slightest sound of a twig moved by a hidden deer. And the highly cathected “third ear” (Reik, 1948) of the sensitive analyst picks up the subtle undertones of unconscious communication from the associations of the patient.

In the case of repression it may well be that the ego utilizes certain energies to forcefully counteract the sensitivity of its perceiving boundaries, so that it is unable to experience the offending, impacting objects, thoughts, motivations, etc. They then become unconscious.

Chapter 3 starts with “The Discovery of Ego States”. P. Janet applied the term “dissociation” to ideas that were split off, thus “not in association” with other ideas in the personality. So then Jung described “complex” as a group of unconscious ideas clustered together.The more collective structures were “archetypes”.
So we get the definition:
“An ego state may be defined as an organized system of behavior and experience whose elements are bound together by some common principle, and which is separated from other such states by a boundary that is more or less permeable”. (p.25)
Federn included withan an ego state only ego-cathected items, but the Watkins add object-cathected elelements, “providing they have been organized together in a coherent pattern”, which may represent an age or relationship in the person’s life, or have been developed to cope with a certain situation.

On p.28, they describe “Integration and Differentiation” in a similar fashion to Zimberoff/Hartman:
“By integration, a child learns to put concepts together, such as a cow and horse, and thus to build more complex units called animals. By differentiation he separates general concepts into more specific meanings, such as discriminating between a cat and a rabbit. Both processes are normal and adaptive.
Normal differentiation permits us to experience one set of behaviors at a party Saturday night and another at the office during the week. When this separating or differentiating process becomes excessive and maladaptive we call it dissociation.” (Where others use the normal process they are calling “differentiation” as a normal, healthy form of “dissociation”).

In “The Development of Ego States” (p.30-1)

Ego states apparently develop by one or more of the following three processes: normal differentiation, introjection of significant others, and reactions to trauma.

First, through normal differentiation the child learns to discriminate foods that taste good and those that do not. He not only makes these simple discriminations, but many others as well, and develops entire patterns of behavior that are appropriate for dealing with parents, teachers, and playmates, and adaptive for adjusting to school, the playground, etc.

These changes are considered quite normal, yet they do represent syndromes of behavior and experience that are clustered and organized under some common principle. As such, they can be considered ego states. The boundaries between these entities and other personality patterns are very flexible and permeable. The child in school is quite aware (or easily capable of becoming aware) of himself in a playground situation. Playground behaviors, however, are not as easily activated when at the school desk (in the presence of the teacher). There is resistance at the boundaries. These less-clearly differentiated ego states are usually adaptive and are economic in providing appropriate behavior patterns when needed.

Second, through the introjection of significant others: the child erects clusters of behavior, which if ego-cathected become roles that he himself experiences, and if object-cathected represent inner objects with whom he must relate and interact. For example, if he introjects a punishing parent and hence develops an ego state pattern around his perceptions of that parent, he may be constantly depressed as he tries to cope covertly with an inward continuation of the accusations and abuse originally heaped upon him by the real parent. However, if later he ego-cathects this state (e.g., infuses it with self-energy) he will not suffer, but he will abuse his own children. We would then say he has “identified” with his bad parent.

He not only introjects the abusing parent, but he may also introject the drama of the original parent-child conflict. Whether he suffers from this internalization or identifies with it and inflicts suffering on others will depend on whether it is primarily object-cathected or ego-cathected. An individual with multiple personalities may alternate between these two patterns of response. Finally, if he introjects both his mother and father, and if these two parents were constantly quarreling with each other, then he may internalize their conflict. This might be manifested by constant headaches of whose origin he is unaware as the two parental ego states battle with each other.

Third, when confronted with severe trauma, rejection, or abuse, the child may dissociate. A lonesome youngster often removes the ego cathexis from part of himself, reenergizes it with object cathexis, and creates an imaginary playmate with whom he can interact. Most children with imaginary playmates discard or repress these entities upon going to school. But if such an ego state is merely repressed, later conflict and environmental pressure may cause it to be reinvested with energy and to reemerge, perhaps in a malevolent, self-punishing form, as it did in the case of Rhonda Johnson, who coauthored With me (JGW) her life story and treatment in We, the Divided Self (Watkins 8: Johnson, 1982).

So here, we have a full book, really explaining this concept that should help us understand Beebe’s model of how the eight functions will play out, through these “archetypal” roles. (The rest of the it gets into Multiple Personalities, which as mentioned “only represents the extreme and maladaptive end of the continuum that starts with normal differentiation”. From this, it then goes into hypnosis as the main treatment of multiple personality disorders. Many examples are given, of them talking to one personality and switching to another.)