THE EGO, THE SELF, AND THE OBJECT RELATIONS IN “MOURNING AND MELANCHOLIA”

While I was writing my essay “Incorporation: While taking in the Pleasure, Aggression and the Object”[1] I realized that “Mourning and Melancholia”[2] by Freud dwelled on the basic issues in terms of the self and object relations. And another thing I had found was that the article also discussed the relation of the ego with the self and object representations.

Before passing on to “Mourning and Melancholia”, I would like to clarify two points, first “the distinction between the ego and the self” and second is the “ego’s investment in the self”. Then, I will scrutinize the relations between the ego, self and the object with the help of “Mourning and Melancholia”.

The Ego and The Self

Freud remarked that the Ego develops from Id and did not specifically conceptualize the self. Anna Freud and other psychoanalysts who worked on the ego, generally defined it through its’ functions as such: (1) adapting to the reality through distinguishing the external reality from the inner reality; (2) regulating the drives through employing defences and regression; (3) regulating the relationships and identifications in the inner world and the external world; (4) making judgments based on introspection and external observation (5) differentiating, integrating and synthesizing and finally (6) autonomous functions. Ego psychoanalysts explained the issues about the functions and the structure of the ego in details. After the extensive knowledge about the ego accumulated by the studies conducted with children, adolescents, borderline and psychotic patients, the concept of self gradually crystallized.

In interpreting "Mourning and Melancholia" as below, my guiding perspective would be to draw on the usages of the ego and the self in the language while distinguishing the ego from the self and defining each one of them. As known, the language reflects and expresses the psyche. The most significant data source of ours is the patient's usage of words during the session. While speaking, the word "I" explicitly refers to the ego and the word "oneself" does the same for the self. [3]

The Linguistic Distinction of the Ego from the Self

1. In certain situations, “the ego” can be replaced with the self. The ego and the self are not differentiated in the earliest years of life. And they can be interchanged in terms of linguistic usage. When a person uses “I” to define himself, he begins representing the self.
2. In the world “oneself”, the person is specifically stressed. The person separates from his environment and can reflect on himself. The person who is able to define “himself” can also differentiate himself from his environment. The distinction between the internal and external worlds is determined over the self (what is me and not me).
3. In the definitions of the self, body parts, behaviors and other elements belonging to the person are utilized. The sense of belonging and bonding are specified. Like we say “come with his own will” or “busy with his own troubles”.
4. In some cases, “self” is defined as if it is a place: “gather oneself, retire into oneself, not feel oneself.” In these terms, the self in somewhere “inside”, takes space, needs space and defines.
5. The way these words are used gives certain clues about the person’s psychic structure, be it general or be it in that very moment. For example; the sentence “I feel anxious” shows that this ego is able to perceive himself. The definitions such as “I lost myself, I cannot be my own self, I forgot myself” show that the ego has difficulty in relating to the self.[4] If the negative tone in these words lasts for a short time, we can argue that the person is influenced bitterly and if the tone lasts longer time, it may describe the problems in the self of this person.
6. The “self” is expressed as an object in the phrases such as “devote oneself, throw oneself, agonize oneself, hold oneself back”. The usage of “self” as a word generally expresses what the ego does with the self: “play hard piece, dice with death.” The ego performs its functions over the self. The ego who wants to open up in relationships “claims oneself”, but when the ego wants to close itself, “conceals itself.” An ego in solitude may live “by himself”, may “retire into his own self”. The ego uses defense mechanisms in its relation to the self and defining the self just as it does the same for the drives.
7. The ego sustains its functionality with the actions. And it uses act verbs and state verbs to define them. The “act”uality of the self is about its being and defined by processing verbs such as “it went yellow, it turned pale, it came to life”.
8. In the phrases such as “being full of oneself, despising oneself, get above oneself” we see the ego’s investment in the self and worth attributed to the self.
9. The word “(one)self”, which is a reflexivity pronoun, expresses the person’s reflections on himself in terms of actuality or ownership. Additionally, it defines the reflectivity of the person’s judgments about himself (the work of the ego) or the feedback of the people around him (which is understood by the ego).[5]
10. The sum of the experiences and the investments made or not made in the self play role in the ego’s perception, definition and understanding of the self. The person may utilize the sum of all these as a self-representation in his fantasies about his own self. The self[6] has both conscious and unconscious dimensions.
11.  ‘When the ego wants to define itself, it “looks for oneself, evaluates oneself, check oneself and finds oneself.”  The self is a compass in these terms. When someone says “I don’t understand myself”, his ego begins alienating from the self. Just as the person who dissociates parts of his self and “goes out wild on himself” has difficulty in understanding himself, the person speaking to him has also difficulty in understanding what he says. If the ego’s expression is strong, the person can “talk about” himself. The ego performs the function of assessing reality over knowing oneself and thus the projective identifications diminish. The proverb “one knows you by himself” expresses that the ego understands the objects through understanding his own self. The phrase “knowing oneself” is used for expressing that the mental functions are proper, the person is mature and aware of himself and the people around him, behaves in accordance with his own conditions and dignity. The ego protects the self through “being wary, not being at pains, not agonizing oneself”. 
12. In internal and external relationships, the self has both stable and instable aspects. Winnicott added a core which is never communicated, always isolated and protected to these and named it as ‘incommunicado[7] self’.

In his “Primitive emotional development”[8] conceptualization, Winnicott discusses the relation between the ego, the self and the object in terms of differentiation of self from the object.  In the normal course of development, the ego takes on the function of integrating the parts of experience. The new-born is in a state of disintegration and cannot integrate its experiences since its ego is just so weak. With the integration, an “ego” (and a person-self) comes out (personalization). This is only possible with the help of mother’s “ego”, which can gather fragmentary and unintegrated experiences together, bind and embrace them. Winnicott emphasizes that this integration has two sources: 1. Mother’s affectionate embrace and care that “keeps an infant warm, being handled and bathed and rocked and named” and 2. The newborn’s “acute instinctual experiences which tend to gather the personality together from within”. When the ego develops and distinguishes between the “me” and “not-me” (the self and the object), an awareness and realization come out. The ego determines the boundaries of the self and differentiate between what to incorporate and introject into the self and what to exclude [excorporate] and project out from the self.

The states of the self, experienced in various relationships, are integrated by the ego. In the development of the self, the experiences of the self and the object are at first disorganized and uncertain. And then, these experiences are grouped into two representations as satisfying object and the satisfied self at one side and starving object and the hungry self at the other side. The self and object representations within two groups begin to be differentiated. After the ego gains some strength, the capacity to bear with the ambivalence in object representations and both the good and the bad object begins integrating. At the same time this is the transition phase to the triadic relationship.

The Investment in the Self in Hartmann

In the psychoanalytic literature, it is mentioned that Freud did not make any distinct definition for the self. If we consider his writings that care for his usage of the self as a word, it can be seen that he has some detections about the self-representation. For example; we can have a look at a detection of Freud in “The Anxiety and Impulsive Life”, 32th of Introduction to Psychoanalysis Conferences:

“In rare cases one can observe that the ego has taken itself as an object and is behaving as though it were in love with itself.”[9]

If, at that very time, the concept of the “self” had been defined and Freud had used the word “self” instead of “itself”, he would have described narcissistic investment in the self[10]. 18 years later, when Hartmann[11] stated that the equivalent of the investment in the object (back-reflection) is not an investment in the ego but the self, the ego and the self were differentiated, which made narcissism understood better. When Hartmann said “the libido withdrew to the ego”, he meant that the self “drew libido on the self” and “loving oneself” means “investing in the self”. And he considered proper to name this not as narcissism but “narcissistic ego investment”. Another point of Hartmann is the drive to protect the “self”, which is defined by Freud as ego drives.[12] And Hartmann also wrote that ”this drive creates ‘interests’ unlike sexuality and aggressiveness.” And I can argue that this drive dominates the sexual and aggressive drives to protect invaluable and unique self. Thus, it prevents the ego from neglecting or destroying the self and the self from being scattered in a world inclining towards the object.[13] The protection from sexual and aggressive drives is one provided by the mother and father for the healthy development of the child. I assume that the drive for protecting the self, described as the ego drive by Freud, turned into the “function of protecting the self”, which I consider another main function of the ego. Just like the disruption of other functions, mental disorders come out when the “function of protecting the self” does not work and self-damaging states emerge.

The ego is effective in the mourning process and maintains its functions for protecting the self. However, in melancholia, aggression towards the object previously withdrew to the self and the ego’s function to protect the self becomes paralyzed. Although I will touch upon the details of the distinction between the mourning and melancholia, I must add this to the differences between the melancholia and the mourning in the following lines.

The Ego in the Service of the Self

The self has certain needs such as existing, being recognized, feeling worthy and true, being private and protected, feeling integrated without conflict, free and associated, stable and flexible. The ego serves such functions on behalf of the self as well as protecting the self. The ego enables the self to

1. maintain its existence and exist in the reality, fantasy and relations;
2. feel its worth, uniqueness, recognition and being known in narcissistic and existential terms[14];
3. be integrated, conflict-free, integrated and able to identify in terms of adaptation
4. have its relations, freedom and privacy in terms of relationships
5. stay stable and be mobile in terms of perpetuity
6. And most importantly the ego understands, satisfies all needs of the self and transforms into the wishes when necessary.

While the ego “does” all these with its own functions, the “being” of the self become realized in life. From this view, the ego has a masculine and paternal side while the self has a feminine and maternal side. The above-mentioned states are needed by the self and the ego realizes and satisfies these needs while living, just like breathing, before the self gives voice to any of them. The ego grows, integrates, develops and revives the self and also makes it true. The healthy people experience this in a natural flow.

Winnicott made such a definition in “Primary Maternal Preoccupation”[15]:

“The ego here represents the sum of experiences. The self of the individual begins emerging from the sum of experiences: instinctual mobility, sensation, return to resting from the action and the gradual formation of the capacity of waiting of the healing from annihilations… all these are the annihilations as reactions to the abuses of the environment. Thus, the individual needs a customized environment that I name as “primary maternal occupation” here, to have a good beginning.”

Of course, just like the self, the ego develops based on the total of the experiences and exists this way. However, collecting and developing the experiences are the functions of the ego. The ego fuses with the self during the experience since intellectual functions may regress and the activity may progress. After the experiencing is done, the ego revises and interprets the experience and makes it a part of the self. Thus, the ego becomes the one that integrates the self. In these terms, psychoanalytical work is the one in which the ego understands and interprets the self.[16]

The Importance of the Ego’s Understanding Depreciation of the Self and the Object

Now, I will interpret the relations between the ego, the self and the object in Freud’s “Mourning and the Melancholia” grounding on the quotations I will cite. In his article, Freud scrutinizes the differences between mourning and melancholia, especially those experienced in the ego.

Freud states that “a destruction in self-respect, self-worth and self-significance is seen in the melancholia unlike the mourning”[17], which means the libidinal investment of the ego in the self has decreased and the self has degraded.

In the mourning process, the investment of the ego in the external world decreases, however, this is not considered weird and Freud says that “we do not consider this a pathology since we know how to explain it”[18]. This can be generalized as the ego diverges from pathology if it explains and understands the self and object relations. Here Freud showed the connection between the ego’s function of interpretation and psychic health. During the therapy, as the patient understands his inner world, the ego functions and awareness of self develop, and this creates a healing process.

That being said, with the help of the ego’s “capacity to distinguish between the internal and external world, during the mourning process, it is understood that the loved object does not exist anymore.”[19] Accepting that the object is not out there enables to give up the denial and starts the mourning process.  Distinguishing between the parts of the object representation that are inside and parts that are outside carries differentiation processes forward. When it is understood that the libido cannot be invested in the external world anymore, “the existence of lost object can be sustained psychically.”[20] Which means that the ego protects the relation of the self with the object in the inner world and deals with the internal object and thus transforms this relation gradually with the help of mourning process. This causes two things: Firstly, the illusion that the ego dominates the relation between the self and the object lasts and the ego accepts the loss. Secondly, the narcissistic injury created by the loss alleviates.  “When the mourning is over, the ego becomes independent and the person keeps being himself and being an individual without having a love object in the external world.”[21] All in all, mourning process richens both the ego and the representation of the self.

The Ego’s Inability to Represent the Lost Object

“It would be the most reasonable to assume that a person cannot perceive his own loss consciously. This means the patient is aware of his own loss causing his own melancholia but takes such a form in this person that he knows who he lost but he does not know what he lost on this person.”[22]

Freud’s above-cited emphasis in Melancholia shows that one can perceive who he lost consciously but cannot represent the content of the loss, which means that during the mourning, the psychic existence of lost object can be sustained, while in the melancholia the loss cannot be perceived and its existence in the inner world cannot be represented psychically, and therefore one cannot break into the mourning process. Then the ego becomes dysfunctional. As to Freud, “what inhibits the ego in the mourning is the loss of the object, while in the melancholia it is the ego that inhibits since the loss is unknown.”[23] When the ego is inhibited during the mourning and this inhibition is in the consciousness, the ego feels sorrow and anger. However, in the melancholia, much of the sorrow and the anger is imprisoned in the ego since they are unconscious. The patient cannot be conscious of his own aggressiveness and cannot attach his aggressiveness to the object.

As to Freud’s following detections,

 “The patient shows his own ego as worthless, lacking of any success and inferior in moral terms; blames himself, blemishes himself and waits for being thrown out and punished.”[24]

In the melancholic patient, there is an implication that the representations of the ego and self are not differentiated or they are fused in one regard, and both of them are problematic in other regard. The ego is unsuccessful since it cannot perform the functions of differentiation in the relationship and re-regulation. The ego fails in the perception and representation of the object that it separates from. The only guilty is himself since the object disappears and discontent is felt; the self is imprisoned in the absence of the object. The ego cannot represent an object to feel anger, blame and punish; it burdens on the self.

Freud argues that “the melancholic person does not feel any boundaries of place and time while blaming and criticizing himself”, “the time extends and even the concept of time is destroyed.” [25] The breakdown of ego’s functions, the uncertainty of time and environment, inability to limit the criticism and guilt indicate the undifferentiation between the internal and external worlds, create fusion or support it. And all these intensify the emotions like hate, anger, blame and humiliation. In the melancholia, the ego’s level of judging the self is unrealistic, which sharpens the strictness of the judging while preventing regulation by making the judgment lighter.

Fusion Self and Object Representations in Melancholia

In melancholia, either the representation of the self and object is not differentiated or a regression where the self and object representations were fused emerged due to the effect of the loss. A separation which is experienced when the self and object representations were fused or when the self is dependent on the object would catch the ego unprepared and create a deep narcissistic wound. The pain created by this wound absorbs the energy of the ego. This is what happens during pathological mourning.

Freud succinctly reveals the fusion of the self and object in the melancholia with the following words:

“We have found the key to the clinical table. We have grasped that the self-blames are actually against the loved object, which are then transferred to the ego (ich) of the patient.”[26]

Here we see that the concepts of self and ego come so close and there is no differentiation between them, which inhibits the ego’s functions in the melancholia. If the sentence “the blames are against the object and then transferred to the self” could be uttered, a relatively more structured psychic would have been at stake. The person, in this case, is able to blame the “self” but these blames would not reach to a level that would inhibit the ego. The patient could be able to think of the question “Am I blaming myself, too much?”

Besides, the detection that the melancholic only “complains for complaining about someone”[27] discusses the topic from a different view. If the melancholic feels insufficient, all objects are insufficient. While he says “I am inadequate” he actually means “you are inadequate and all of us are adequate”, which indicates that the object representation is imprisoned in the ego, is not differentiated and is diffused into all objects.

The Ego’s Positioning of Object Representation

The detection saying “the world impoverishes in the mourning while the ego itself impoverishes in the melancholia”[28] proves the importance of the position of object representation in one’s inner world. The representations of the self and object are mostly differentiated in the person who is able to separate the representations before the loss. Representations of the internal and external objects are differentiated and the object representation in the inner world is integrated and differentiated from the one in the external world. Therefore, when the object in the external world dies, not melancholia but mourning is experienced thanks to the strength of the object in the internal world. The loss does not turn into a narcissistic wound and the narcissistic investment accumulated in the ego can be sublimated to the creativity.  Most importantly, the ego preserves its capacity of symbolization and verbalization. The outcomes of the loss due to the sublimation and the mourning turn into the benefit of the person and the society. “In melancholia, the ego itself becomes empty” since an emptiness remains after the fused self-object representations in the ego are lost and symbolization and verbalization can not exist.

In the melancholia, since “identification of the ego with the leaving object”[29] is experienced with a sudden abandonment rather than a representable separation which is experienced after the gradual differentiation or when the ego is ready, the relationship between the self and object is frozen in the stage of the incorporation of a whole body[30], the initial step of object relating.  

Freud states that “in melancholia, a part of the ego is separated and treats it as if it is the object”[31], which in one regard indicates that when it is early to treat the self as an object, this weakens the ego. In melancholia, we can observe the fusion of the self, ego and superego. In the psychological development of the child, the differentiation of his self from his mother-father and also his identification with them form his superego. However, in the mourning, the process of differentiation from the dying object richen the structures of the ego and the superego.

It is necessary to add Freud’s description that “the shadow of the object is on the ego”[32] that the object whose shadow is cast upon the ego is not an object that has existed in internal and external worlds separately in the reality of the melancholic person, as I’ve mentioned above. This means that the object has a shadow yet is not called into being as an integrated representation of inner and outer worlds and cannot have a place in the internal and external reality of the melancholic person. This could contribute to the illusion of the person who has lost the object as “I have eaten the object up”.

Abraham and Torok’s[33] studies on this topic are very valuable. They named the internal representation whose destructiveness overweighs as “internal grave” and named the introjected and encapsulated representation as “crypt.” Just because the person cannot differentiate from the object gradually and within a period of preparation, the roads of abstraction and symbolization like independency, individualization, creativity and sublimation are blocked. If I concretize this drawing upon death, both the grave of the dead person cannot be represented and a “specter object” in the melancholic appears. And the ego cannot find the way to separate from such a specter and mourn. Andre Green[34] described a similar state where the child cannot differentiate from the mother and even feels responsible to animate his mother using the “dead mother” concept. The only way to separate from the internal object is to externalize it through projecting with transference and “slowly” work through it with a therapist who can understand and verbalize it. If this is not done, the persecution and torture on the self by the ego will sustain. Freud writes that “this relationship, which turns into sadistic pleasure, may explain the dynamics of the suicide.”[35][36]

Narcissistic Object Choice

Freud utters that the melancholia carries the characteristics of “narcissistic object choice and mourning.”[37] In narcissistic object choice, one chooses an object who is like himself or whom he wants to resemble or was a part of himself before.[38] Freud’s statement that “love relation does not end in spite of the conflict” does also indicate a kind of dependency. The definition of libido’s attachment in the sentence “once an object choice and libido’s attachment to a certain person were at stake, then object relation is broken due to a true humiliation or frustration from this loved person”[39] would be helpful to narrow as the existence of a deprecative object relation, which is loved and felt dependent or cannot be tolerated in case it is separated psychically In this regard, object’s shadow over the ego is an injury. As the self and object relation under the dominance of the ego is ruptured in a way that is out of ego’s control and becomes humiliating. The ruptured object leaves a crippled ego and self. And sometimes when this injury is experienced like a heavy and nitty-gritty hit since the self is dependent on the object, living becomes meaningless for the ego. And it is also crippling for the ego in that it prevents the sublimation because of the feelings of humiliation and disappointment. Another crippling state here is that while it is expected that the relation between the self and object relation develops and gains new functions and strength to the ego, it remains as a stubby self and object relation. The object remains in an incorporated and non-assimilated way in the beginning phase of self and object relation. The melancholic patient is not ready to mourn, cannot face the loss of the object since the only thing he loses is not object but a part of himself. Then, the empty space from this part may be filled with a narcissistic object choice. However, these narcissistic relations are like prosthesis, which complement a lame leg. If the mourning is not active, the deprivation leads to the depression again just like a prosthesis has broken. When the libidinal investment of narcissistic object relation becomes stronger, both the aggressive investment and ambivalence are intensified but they are unconscious. As the self is not differentiated from the object wholly, the object exists as the only one expected for alleviating the upheavals created by the ambivalence, so it becomes very precious and important. The expectation from the object to regulate ambivalence creates a dilemma, supports dependency and weakness.

“If the love felt for the object, the love that cannot be given up even if the object is left, takes shelter in the narcissistic identification, the hatred comes in and abuses the replaced object, humiliates it, makes it suffer and acquires a sadistic satisfaction from it.”[40]

Freud’s above statement describes that what the person wants is to make the pain causing object[41] suffer because of being left by it and gets even with this and takes an omnipotent and sadistic pleasure from it. For the ego, the abandoned self is attacked by sadistic powers. Unfortunately, in the melancholia, the object to take revenge from is not outside but within the ego in an incorporated way. This whole aggression is projected onto the hidden object in the ego actually the undifferentiated ego and the self, being the finger of the blame on the way.

Conclusion

The separation from what is differentiated and cannot be differentiated affect the worthiness of the self, the ego’s functions and psychic health in different ways. If the self is differentiated from the object, the determination of self-worth level moves away from being dependent on the object, which enables the ego to perform its functions in a more independent way. If the self is not differentiated from the object and dependent on it, the loss of the object would mean losing a part of the self and ego and thus getting injured. Freud likens melancholia to an open wound that draws whole psychic investment on itself.

As a result, there are three main points that this article eases to understand for us:

1. The differentiation of the self, object and ego is experienced through separation and mourning. The ego can only mourn when this differentiation is accepted and processed. The capability of evaluating the reality is only developed through the differentiation of the ego, self and the object rather than only differentiating the self and the object.
2. This texts touches upon the differentiation of self and object relations and the way the ego is inhibited when this differentiation is not experienced. The level of the work of mourning and differentiation of psychic agencies determine the psychic health and the level of psychic structuring.
3. What creates melancholia is the undifferentiated relationship between the self and the object, rupture in the dependent relation of self and object and the inhibition of the ego.

LIST OF DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN MOURNING AND MELANCHOLIA IN FREUD

MOURNING	MELANCHOLIA
The investment of the ego in the external world diminishes.	The libidinal investment in the self diminishes, and the self is degraded.
With the help of the ego’s capability to distinguish between internal and external worlds, the loss of loved object is realized.	The time and place orientation are destroyed, self and object representations are fused (the self and the object are either never differentiated or re-fused under the effect of the loss).
The existence of the lost object can be sustained psychically.	The person in melancholia cannot perceive and represent the lost object in a conscious way.
What inhibits the ego is the absence of the object.	The inhibitor (and the inhibited) is the ego since what is lost is unknown.
The world becomes impoverished and empty.	The ego itself becomes impoverished and empty.
When one mourns after the lost object, the ego and the superego richen.	“Identification of the ego with the abandoned object” is an incorporation. The ego cannot find the way how to separate and mourn, and thus fails.
The lost object is buried, its loss is understood and it is mourned after.	“The shadow of the object is on the ego”. The object cannot have a grave in the external word, there is a specter inside, which has a shadow.
The guilt is on a tolerated and workable level.	The person knows no bounds in environment and time for blaming and criticizing himself, he is so severe.
The differentiation from the narcissistic object can be mourned since it is experienced before the loss and ambivalence is not intensified.	The ego makes a narcissistic object choice, abuses, humiliates the object and gives it pain and then is satisfied in a sadistic way.
The mourning is a narcissistic injury, which can be tolerated, gives value and meaning to the life.	The narcissistic injury in the melancholia “is like an open wound that draws the whole psychic investment on itself.”

An addition to the factors in Mourning and Melancholia:

The ego drives are efficient in the mourning and sustain their functions for self-preservation.

In melancholia, self-preservation drive of the ego is paralyzed.

 

 

---

[1] A. A. Köşkdere, “Bedenin İçine Alma: Haz, Saldırganlık ve Nesne İçeriye Alınırken”, Psikanaliz Yazıları, 2020, 41, pp. 179-201.

[2] S. Freud [1917]. “Mourning and Melancholia”, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916), 1975, s. 237-254.

[3] “Ben” (I) in Turkish is the personal pronoun that expresses first-person singular who takes the action. "Ben" (I) and “kendi” (oneself) are both pure Turkish words. “Kendü özü” (own-self) in the old Turkic texts transformed into “kendisi” (oneself).

[4]If we discuss the relationship between the ego, the object and the self over a depressed person, we can say that: in some depressive neurosis patients, the ego invests less in the self and the self-object differentiation is also less, the main point is to make the object live and when the ego invests in the object, it assumes that it invests in itself. We hear the sentences like “I have never thought about myself. I have always lived for him.” from the patients with depressive neurosis. These words mean that the ego perceives that it both takes the object for itself and tries to make the object live. This perception is only realized in a moment of great disappointment about the object or when the object dies. Since thinking for itself means neglecting (killing or eating) the object, it creates guilt. The person gives up the awareness of self-object differentiation quickly since he interprets this as betrayal and selfishness.

[5] For example; if someone is relaxed and pleased after hiking, he turns to himself and makes an impression like “I am someone who likes and enjoys trekking.” If he is not completely aware of this impression, when a friend of his says “You like hiking. I can see your content from your face”, his awareness would increase about himself. Or else he gets bored of hiking after a while and says “this is not me” and then he can take himself out of these experiences.

[6] E. L. Auchincloss, E. Samberg. “Self”, Psychoanalytic Terms & Concepts American Psychoanalytic Association, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2012, pp. 231.

[7] D. W. Winnicott. “Communicating and not communicating leading to a study of certain opposites”. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, Hogarth Press, London, 1965, s. 179–192.

[8] Winnicott D. W. [1945]. “İlkel Duygusal Gelişim”, Psikanaliz Yazıları, 2011, 23, s. 109-123.

[9]  S. Freud (1933) “New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis”, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 22, s. 102.

[10] The difference is clearer in German since self (selbst) is used as a separate word.

[11] H. Hartmann. “Comments on the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Ego”, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 1950, 5, s. 74-96.

[12] “I interpret “self-preservative drive” definition as the ego’s drive to protect the self.

[13] A. A. Köşkdere (2018) “being me in total”: psychoanalytical interpretation. Psikanaliz Yazıları 36:83-96

[14] “Know Yourself” in Apollon Temple in Delphi and in many other religions and ideologies is a maxim for the ego.

[15] D. W. Winnicott [1956] “Birincil Annelik Tasası”, Psikanaliz Yazıları 4, 2002, s. 101-107.

[16] At the beginning, the ego of the mother takes on this process for the child. The safe care and facilitating environment provided by the mother enables the child to assert his fundamental bio-genetical existence, which forms the ego and the self of the child. The healthier the relationship develops, the more the child’s vitality, creativity, originality come out. If, generally, the child has to adapt to the needs of the mother rather than the mother’s adaptation to the child’s needs, a false self is created in the child only for the sake of conformity (Winnicott, D. W. (1965) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. p. 145). I will discuss the effect of the breakdown of the mother and the family, the two being the facilitating environment, on the Dynamics of melancholia in another paper.

 

[17] ibid. p. 244

[18] ibid. p. 244

[19] ibid. p 244

[20] ibid. p. 245

[21] ibid. p. 245

[22] ibid. p. 245

[23] ibid. s. 245

[24] ibid. s. 246

[25] ibid. s. 245

[26] ibid. s. 248

[27] ibid. p. 247

[28] ibid. p. 246

[29] ibid. p. 248

[30] İnkorporasyon, in German; Einverleibung, in English; incorporation, in French; incorporation

[31] ibid. p. 256

[32] ibid p. 248

[33] N. Abraham, M. Torok (1994). “The Lost Object-Me: Notes on Endocryiptic identification” The Shell and the Kernel Renewals of Psychoanalysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, s. 139-156.

Abraham, N., Torok, M. (1994). “Mourning or Melancholia: Introjection versus Incorporation” The Shell and the Kernel Renewals of Psychoanalysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, s. 125-138.

[34] Green, A. [1983].  “The Dead Mother”, On Private Madness, London: Hogart Press and the Instutute of Psychoanalysis, 1986, p. 142-173.

[35] ibid. p. 252

[36] I discussed the relations of these dynamics with incorporation in my essay “Bedenin İçine Alma: Haz, Saldırganlık ve Nesne İçeriye Alınırken” in Psikanaliz Yazıları.

[37] ibid. p. 250

[38] S. Akthar, “Narcissism”, Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, 2009, Karnac Books, London, p. 179.

[39] ibid. p. 249

[40] Ibid. p. 251

[41] A substition may be found.