Ego integrity was the term given by

Erik Erikson Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity cr ...

to the last of his eight stages of psychosocial development, and used by him to represent 'a post-

narcissistic Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

love of the human ego—as an experience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense, no matter how dearly paid for'.Erik H. Erikson, ''

Childhood and Society ''Childhood and Society'' is a 1950 book about the social significance of childhood by the psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson.Paul Roazen, 'Childhood and Society', ''International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis''Reprinted onlineat answers.com. Summary E ...

'' (Penguin 1973) pp. 259-260 Integrity of the ego can also be used with respect to the development of a reliable sense of self, a reliable sense of other, and an understanding of how those constructs interact to form a person's experience of reality; as well as to the way 'the synthetic function of the ego, though it is of such extraordinary importance, is subject...to a whole number of disturbances'.Sigmund Freud, ''On Metapsychology'' (PFL 11) p. 462

Erikson's formulation

Erikson wrote that 'for the fruit of these seven stages I know no better word than ego integrity...the ego's accrued assurance of its proclivity for order and meaning'. Erikson considered that 'if vigor of mind combines with the ''gift of responsible renunciation'', some old people can envisage human problems in their entirety...a living example of the "closure" of a style of life'. The opposite of ego integrity was despair, as 'signified by fear of death: the one and only life cycle is not accepted as the ultimate of life. Despair expresses the feeling that the time is now too short...to try out alternative roads to integrity'. 'Erikson's hypothesis that maturity involves working through a conflict between integrity and despair over past accomplishments' has received some empirical support: on one measure, 'the resolution of past life stages was more predictive of ego integrity than were other personality variables'.

Analogues

Gail Sheehy Gail Sheehy (born Gail Henion; November 27, 1936 – August 24, 2020) was an American author, journalist, and lecturer. She was the author of seventeen books and numerous high-profile articles for magazines such as ''New York'' and ''Vanity ...

termed the later stage of 'Second Adulthood...''Age of Integrity'' (65-85+)'. The ninth of

Loevinger's stages of ego development Loevinger's stages of ego development are proposed by developmental psychologist Jane Loevinger (1918-2008) and conceptualize a theory based on Erik Erikson's psychosocial model and the works of Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) in which "the ego wa ...

was the ' ''Integrated Stage''...and ego integrity versus despair are probably Erikson's version of the Integrated Stage'.

Integrity of the ego

In his structural theory,

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

described the ego as the mediator between the id and

super-ego The id, ego, and super-ego are a set of three concepts in psychoanalytic theory describing distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus (defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche). The three agents are theoretical cons ...

and the external world. The task of the ego is to find a balance between primitive drives, morals, and reality, while simultaneously satisfying the id and superego. Freudians saw the ego as forming from separate "nuclei": 'A final ego is formed by synthetic integration of these nuclei, and in certain states of ego regression a split of the ego into its original nuclei becomes observable'. The main concern of the ego is with safety, ideally only allowing the id's desires to be expressed when the consequences are marginal. Ego defenses are often employed by the ego when id behaviour conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos, or an individual's internalization of these morals, norms, and taboos. Freud noted however that in the face of conflicts with superego or id, it was always 'possible for the ego to avoid a rupture by submitting to encroachments on its own unity and even perhaps by effecting a cleavage or division of itself'. In a late, unfinished paper he examined how sometimes 'the instinct is allowed to retain its satisfaction and proper respect is shown to reality...at the price of a rift in the ego which never heals but increases as time goes on...a splitting of the ego'.

Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...

would develop this line of thought, and maintain indeed that 'it is in the disintegration of the imaginary unity constituted by the ego that the subject finds the signifying material of his symptoms'. From another standpoint,

Object relations theory Object relations theory is a school of thought in psychoanalytic theory centered around theories of stages of ego development. Its concerns include the relation of the psyche to others in childhood and the exploration of relationships between ...

has explored 'the encounter with the "other" that threatens the ego's integrity', as when the object in question is lacking in 'its expected function as "container" of excitations'. The word ego is taken directly from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

where it is the nominative of the first person singular personal pronoun and is translated as "I myself" to express emphasis—it is a translation of Freud's German term "Das Ich", which in English would be "the I".

Cultural examples

'In

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

's ''De Senectute''...old age acquires a meaning identified with the achievement of total self-possession, ego-integrity, and wisdom...Erikson's own psychology, on its normative side, is finally only a restatement of

Stoic Stoic may refer to: * An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy *STOIC, a programming language * ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll * ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain *' ...

ideals'. In his late haiku, 'we see Issa the old man—hundreds of years, thousands of years old, the Old Man of

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...

. That is our fate too. We have to die, to become nothing, in order to know the meaning of something'.R. H. Blyth, ''A History of Haiku Vol I'' (Tokyo 1980) p. 403

Erikson's formulation

Analogues

Integrity of the ego

Cultural examples

See also

References

Further reading