Key Arguments

• Freud describes the ego as "a coherent organization of a person’s mental processes" to which consciousness is attached and from which "repressions also originate."
• In analytic work, when patients’ associations fail as they approach the repressed, Freud attributes this to resistance, but notes that the patient "knows thing about it"—the resistance is unknown to consciousness.
• Since this resistance "certainly stems from his Ego and belongs to it," Freud infers the existence of something "in the Ego itself that is also unconscious and behaves just as the repressed," exerting strong effects without awareness and requiring special work to become conscious.
• He concludes that it causes "infinite cloudiness and difficulties" to continue speaking of neurosis as a conflict "between the conscious and the unconscious"; structurally, the contradiction must be seen as one "between the coherent Ego and the repressed entity split off from it."

Source Quotes

14 Among the situations that show as much, the following are highlighted as crucial ones. We have developed the idea that there is a coherent organization of a person’s mental processes and call that the very Ego 15 itself. Consciousness is attached to the Ego, which controls the approaches to motility, 16 i.e., the discharge of excitations into the outside world; it is the mental authority which exercises control over all its partial processes, goes to sleep at night, and then still handles dream censorship.

Consciousness is attached to the Ego, which controls the approaches to motility, 16 i.e., the discharge of excitations into the outside world; it is the mental authority which exercises control over all its partial processes, goes to sleep at night, and then still handles dream censorship. From this Ego repressions also originate, through which some certain inner mental endeavors not only of consciousness, but also of other types of application and activity, should be excluded. Through the repressed, in analysis, the removed stands in contrast to the Ego, and analysis confronts the task of lifting the resistors which the Ego expresses against employing the repressed.

Now we observe that during the analysis of the patient who finds himself in distress, if we give him certain tasks; his associations fail when they should draw near to the repressed. Then we tell him that he was under the control of a resistance, but he knows thing about it and even if he should guess from his reluctance that now a resistor operates within him, still he does not know to term and indicate it. But since this resistance certainly stems from his Ego and belongs to it, we face an unforeseen situation.

But since this resistance certainly stems from his Ego and belongs to it, we face an unforeseen situation. We have found something in the Ego itself that is also unconscious and behaves just as the repressed, i.e., expresses strong effects, without even being aware of it, and to achieve awareness, needs especial work. The result of this experience for the analytical practice is that we get into infinite cloudiness and difficulties if we keep to our usual parlance, e.g., wanting to tie neurosis back to a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious.

We have found something in the Ego itself that is also unconscious and behaves just as the repressed, i.e., expresses strong effects, without even being aware of it, and to achieve awareness, needs especial work. The result of this experience for the analytical practice is that we get into infinite cloudiness and difficulties if we keep to our usual parlance, e.g., wanting to tie neurosis back to a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. For this contradiction, from our insight into the structural relationships of inner life we must consider another, existing between the coherent Ego and the repressed entity split off from it.

The result of this experience for the analytical practice is that we get into infinite cloudiness and difficulties if we keep to our usual parlance, e.g., wanting to tie neurosis back to a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. For this contradiction, from our insight into the structural relationships of inner life we must consider another, existing between the coherent Ego and the repressed entity split off from it. 17 The impact for our view of the unconscious is more important still. The dynamic consideration had brought us the first correction, the structural insight brings us the second.

Key Concepts

• We have developed the idea that there is a coherent organization of a person’s mental processes and call that the very Ego 15 itself.
• From this Ego repressions also originate, through which some certain inner mental endeavors not only of consciousness, but also of other types of application and activity, should be excluded.
• we tell him that he was under the control of a resistance, but he knows thing about it
• we have found something in the Ego itself that is also unconscious and behaves just as the repressed, i.e., expresses strong effects, without even being aware of it, and to achieve awareness, needs especial work.
• we get into infinite cloudiness and difficulties if we keep to our usual parlance, e.g., wanting to tie neurosis back to a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious.
• we must consider another, existing between the coherent Ego and the repressed entity split off from it. 17

Context

Later in Chapter I, where Freud introduces the problem of unconscious aspects of the ego revealed through resistance and reframes neurosis as a structural conflict within the ego system.