Ego Functions

Front 1

reality testing

Back 1

The accurate perception of the external environment, of one’s internal world, and of the differences between them.

Front 2

judgement

Back 2

The capacity to identity a possible course of action and to anticipate and weigh the consequences of behavior in order to engage in appropriate action

Front 3

sense of reality of the world and of the self

Back 3

It is possible to perceive inner and outer reality accurately but to experience the world and the self in distorted ways. The need to feel or to be aware of the world and of 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.

Front 4

regulation and control of drives, affects and impulses

Back 4

The ability to modulate or delay the expression of impulses and control of drives, affects in accord with reality; capacity to hold sexual and aggressive feeling in check w/o acting on them until the ego has evaluated whether they meet one's own moral standards and are socially acceptable

Front 5

object relations

Back 5

The quality and patterning of an individual’s interpersonal relationships and internalized sense of self and others; the ability to form and maintain coherent representations of others and of the self

Front 6

thought processes

Back 6

An important development is the shift from primary process to secondary process thinking which follows the reality principle and is characterized by the ability to postpone instinctual gratification
or discharge until reality conditions are appropriate

Front 7

adaptive regression in the service of the ego

Back 7

The individual returns to an earlier stage of psychosexual development in order to avoid anxiety or conflict. This regression can serve adaptive ends.

Front 8

defensive functioning

Back 8

Unconscious, internal mechanisms used to ward off anxiety or fear inducing situation. Defenses can be adaptive or maladaptive

Front 9

stimulus barrier

Back 9

The degree to which an individual is able to maintain his level of functioning or comfort amid increases or decreases in the level of stimulation to which he or she is exposed.

Front 10

autonomous functions

Back 10

Attention, concentration, memory, learning, perception, motor functions, and intention have a primary autonomy from the drives and are conflict free (meaning they do not arise in response to conflict).These functions can lose their autonomy and become associated with conflict during early childhood development.

Front 11

master-competence

Back 11

The degree to which one feels competent originates early in child-hood as a function of one’s innate abilities, the mastery of developmental tasks, and the appropriate feedback of significant others in the environment. The gradual accrual of a sense of mastery or competence becomes a crucial part of self-confidence with the world and thus becomes an important aspect of identity of sense of self. Coping is related to mastery but implies the individual’s capacity to use basic internal resources and available external resources to develop novel solutions.

Front 12

synthetic-integrative function

Back 12

This function is responsible for binding or fitting all the disparate aspects of the personality into a unified structure that acts upon the external world. The synthetic function is responsible for personality integration, resolution of splits, fragmentations, and conflicting tendencies within the personality