title: The body ego from the point of view of psychophysical fusion.
abstract: Freud introduced the concept of body ego as a basis for all later ego development. He did not describe it in detail, however, and the nature of the body ego has remained unclear. I suggest that the original body ego in the infant is the outcome of psychophysical fusion, i.e. fusion of experienced pleasure with sense impressions coming from without (the mother). The result of this leads to the establishment of primal repression and the psychosomatic boundary. The experiences of fusion are gradually internalized to form a stable ego nucleus. It is further suggested that the remarkable hypnagogic and dream phenomena described by Isakower and Lewin reflect the internalized result of this process and offer a chance to investigate these early and developmentally central phenomena.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University Central Hospital of Kuopio, Finland.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lehtonen
mesh_terms: D001828:Body Image; D001942:Breast Feeding; D004325:Dreams; D004532:Ego; D005619:Freudian Theory; D006801:Humans; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009769:Object Attachment; D011601:Psychophysics; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology