Hartmann’s Ego Development and Adaptation Essay

Heinz Hartmanns Ego Development and Adaptation was a more(prenominal) comprehensive development of Sigmund Freuds theory of Psychoanalysis. In the theory Freud separate the human mind into the id, self and superego with each part having a particular(prenominal) function. The id was the internal automatic drive for satisfaction of introductory human involve and desires. The ego developed in a person to counter the id and its basic drive. The ego in some quarters is known as vanity since it separated man from animal by controlling unbridled instinctive behavior.The superego constituted the conscience of the person and helped to balance the id and the ego, allowing either to operate and as necessary to satisfy basic human desires while maintaining the gravitas of the individual (Hartmann, 1958). This paper is a summary of Hartmanns theory on Ego Development and Adaptation. Ego Development and Adaptation Like Freud, Hartmann believed that the ego developed as a result of human interaction with the milieu.This environs provided external stimuli such(prenominal) as rebuke by parents and mistakes such as falling down a slippery floor that shaped the behavior a person interacted with his environment after the experience (Hartmann, 1958). However, he went merely to assiduously study ego functions hence coming up with a general psychology and a clinical instrument to evaluate the cognitive process of an individual and formulate therapeutic interventions.He believed that the ego was not make just by external influences but also has innate capacities such as perception, attention, memory, concentration, motor coordination, and language. Under what he termed an average expectable environment these capacities developed independently of libidinal and aggressive drives consequently they were not products of thwarting and conflict (Hartmann, 1958). Nevertheless, he agreed that the human condition was inextricably drag in conflict thus some of the functions we re shaped and conditioned by such conflicts.Aggressive and libidinal drives therefore helped shape these functions in the prospect of the conflicts (Hartmann, 1958). Conclusion So according to Hartmann the duty of the psychoanalyst is to neutralize the impulses shaped by conflict so as to expand conflict exculpate functions. Only in this way can the psychoanalyst help still the proper adaptation of the individual to his environment (Hartmann, 1958).