The analytic introject and ego development

A discussion of "Introjection and the Idealizing Transference" by Theodore L. Dorpat, M.D. Ego defects during analysis can be converted into defensive adaptations and then become legitimate analytic material. Two clinical vignettes of patients suffering from an inability to maintain mental representations without reinforcement from external percepts are presented. These patients suffered from an inability to internalize experiences with the outer world and external objects. The resulting ego impoverishment was experienced as tormenting feelings of inadequacy and helpless vulnerability. In treatment, these feelings caused the analyst to feel the same hopelessness the patient did. The analyst, once he regained the analytic composure to view all of the patient's productions in terms of their transference potential and adaptive significance, became a synthesizing force. His presence, in essence, held the patient together. The patient gradually was enable to internalize the analyst as a unifying modality and form an analytic introject. The formation of analytic introject is the outcome of specific clinical interactions. The author discusses the interplay of counter-transference frustration and structuralizing interpretations, even what might be considered wrong interpretations, and stresses the various factors during treatment involved in the acquisition of psychic structure in a particular clinical context.