Symbolism, the Primary Process, and Dreams: Freud’s Contribution

This chapter surveys new developments in the theory of symbolism, primary process thinking, and dreams, and then revisits some of Freud’s own material to suggest how his contribution has been variously neglected or misconstrued. Freud’s broader treatment of symbolism, and his theory of drive as a motivation–cognition–affect matrix, suitably clarified, offer a rich and coherent context for understanding symbolization and symbolic activity across primary and secondary processes and along a pathological-normal continuum—from psychosis, dream, defence, and phantasy to healthy ego functioning, creativity, and waking rational thought. This material helps to bridge the supposed gap between Freud’s metapsychology and his clinical theory.

Gender differences in sexuality Ego-functioning in patients with epilepsy

Objective: to study the gender features of sexuality as one of the structural central ego functions in patients with epilepsy.Patients and methods. The investigation was conducted on a sample of 102 people, by using the Ego Structure Test described by G. Ammon (Ich-Struktur-Test nach Ammon (ISTA), 1997).Results and discussion. This study showed that female patients with epilepsy had a more severity of destructive and deficient components of ego functions, such as aggression, fear, outer and inner ego demarcation, narcissism; sexual deficit as compared to normative data. The same was often noted at a statistically significant level in comparison with other study groups.Conclusion. The impairment of all core functions in female patients with epilepsy leads to the impossible realization of mature sexuality.

A theory upon origin of implicit musical language

The author suggests that the origin of musicality is implied in an implicit musical language every human being possesses in uterus due to a resonance and attunement with prenatal environment, mainly the mother. It is emphasized that ego-development and evolving implicit musical language can be regarded as parallel processes. To support this idea a lot of examples of musical representations are demonstrated by the author. Music is viewed as a tone of ego-functioning involving the musical representations of bodily and visceral senses, cross-modal perception, unity of sense of self, individual fate of ego, and tripolar and bipolar musical coping codes. Finally, a special form of music therapy is shown to illustrate how can implicit musical language be transformed into explicit language by virtue of participants’ spontaneity, creativity, and playfulness.

Measuring selfhood according to self-determination theory: Construction and validation of the Ego Functioning Questionnaire (EFQ)

The goal of this research was to develop and validate an instrument designed to measure the three types of self proposed by Hodgins and Knee (2002): integrated, ego-invested, and impersonal. This measure was termed The Ego Functioning Questionnaire (EFQ). In Study 1 (N=202), the factorial structure of the EFQ was examined by means of an exploratory factor analysis, and the metric properties of its subscales were documented. In Study 2 (N=300), the 3 factor structure of the EFQ was successfully corroborated using a confirmatory factor analysis. In Study 3 (N=131), associations between the EFQ and a variety of cognitive, affective, and social variables were found to display meaningful patterns, thereby providing support for the EFQ?s construct validity. Also, the EFQ was not susceptible to socially desirable responding. Results are discussed in terms of their fundamental and applied implications.