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Definition
The accurate perception of the external environment, or one’s internal world, and of the differences between them is a complex ego function that is essential to all adaptive behavior.
The ability to differentiate between one’s own fantasy life and subjective experience and to the objective world and to determine whether the source of stimulus is inside or outside of the self. |
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Definition
The ability to decide as to what behaviors/actions are appropriate in certain circumstances.
Judgment involves the capacity to identify possible courses of action and to anticipate and weigh the implications or consequences of behavior in order to engage in appropriate action, that is, behavior directed to achieving desired goals with minimal negative consequences. Good judgment is dependent on accurate perception and testing of reality and is essential to effective problem solving. |
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Term
| Sense of Reality of the world and of the self: |
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Definition
A good sense of reality involves the ability to feel or be aware of the world and one’s connection to it as real, to experience one’s own body as intact and belonging to oneself, to feel a sense of self, and to experience the separation or boundaries between oneself and others as distinct organisms.
This complex ego function provides the basis for the core experience of one’s physical and psychological identity and relation to others. |
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Term
| Regulation and control of drives, affects, and impulses: |
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Definition
The ability to modulate, delay, inhibit, or control the expression of impulses and affects (feelings) in accord with reality is the hallmark of adaptive functioning and is essential to living among others.
Similarly, the ability to tolerate anxiety, frustration, and unpleasant emotions such as anger and depression without becoming overwhelmed, impulsive, or symptomatic is necessary to optimal functioning |
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Term
| Object (or interpersonal) relations: |
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Definition
It refers to both the development of one’s internalized sense of self and others and the evolution of the capacity for mature interpersonal relationships.
The optimal development of internalized object relations requires that an individual perceive him or herself as a separate person with three-dimensional qualities and be able to view others in a similar fashion. |
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Term
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Definition
The process of mature thinking: where individuals can perceive and attend to stimuli, concentrate, anticipate, symbolize, remember, and reason. Most individuals are able to communicate their thought processes clearly through language.
Thinking and speaking usually are organized, logical, and oriented to reality rather than fragmented, irrational, and oriented toward fantasy. |
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Term
| Adaptive regression in the service of the ego: |
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Definition
Connotes an ability to permit oneself to relax the hold on, and relationship to, reality; to experience aspects of the self that are ordinarily inaccessible when one is engaged in concentrated attention to reality; and to emerge with increased adaptive capacity as a result of creative integrations.
Ability to permit oneself to relax the hold on reality experience. Essentially the ability to experience aspects of the self that are ordinarily inaccessible when one is engaged in concentrated attention to reality. Woman can empathize with her infant when talking baby talk. |
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Term
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Definition
The development of unconscious, internal mechanisms called defenses to protect him or her from the painful experience of anxiety or from fear inducing situations. Defenses can be adaptive or maladaptive.
See all defense mechanisms. Initial defenses start at childhood and continue. |
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Term
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Definition
All individuals develop a mechanism by which they regulate the amount of stimulation received so that it is optimal, neither too little nor too great.
Refers to the degree to which a person is able to maintain her or his level of functioning amid increases or decreases of stimulation in the environment. |
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Term
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Definition
The concept of Hartmann, that certain ego function such as attention, concentration, memory, learning, perception, motor functions, and intention have a primary autonomy from the drives and thus are conflict-free, that, they do not arise in response to frustration and conflict as Freud suggested. They are innate and have their own energy.
Capacity to remember traumatic experiences. |
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Term
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Definition
The degree to which one is and feels competent originates early in childhood as a function of one’s innate abilities, one’s mastery of developmental tasks, and the appropriate feedback of significant others in the environment. It affects the way one experiences and deals with the world.
A child can pick up a stick (mastered the ability to this), but uses the stick as a tool (to knock something out of a tree)….hence competence |
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Term
| Synthetic-Integrative function: |
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Definition
A primary feature of the ego is its capacity to “organize mental processes into a coherent form” The synthetic function is responsible for binding or fitting all the disparate aspects of the personality into a unified structure that acts upon the external world.
A child loves his or her mother yet has angry feelings toward her at time at times. The ability to synthesize these feelings is a pivotal developmental achievement. |
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