Is your ego functioning? What are ego’s functions? Do they serve you or entrap you?
The granddaddy of psychology, Sigmund Freud, said the ego functioned to manage the instincts and defenses against them.
According to Carl Jung, the four ways of interpreting reality are the four ego-functions – Sensation, Thinking, Feeling, and Intuition. These consist of two diametrically-opposed pairs. Thinking is the opposite of Feeling, and Sensation the opposite of Intuition.
Sounds like the foundation of the Meyers-Briggs test. Are you more thinking or feeling? More sensate or intuitive?
Heinz Hartmann has a few more ego functions up his sleeve – synthesis, integration, regulation, organization, anticipation, tension, decision making, delay, drive taming, identification, intelligence, intention, judgment, language, memory, motility, neutralization, object comprehension, object relations, perception, productivity, reality testing, self-preservation, speech, symbolization, thinking, defense and volition.
The deeper our knowledge and wisdom of psychology goes, the more we learn about ego, ego structure and ego function, but the question remains for those on the spiritual path – what is being served, defended against or ignored?
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