Nellie Curtin – The Narcissistic Ego: Functions and Fallacies
 
THE LETTER 63 Autumn 2016 pages 97 – 102
 
Ego therapies have as their aim the strengthening of the ego. This is in sharp contrast to Lacan’s statement that the ego is the capacity to fail. Freud identifies the functions of the ego as well as presenting the complex theory of its origins. Following Freud and Lacan, this paper, while recognizing the ego as an agency which speaks, searches back to the narcissistic fixation of the image and its precarious foundation in the imaginary. There is also an attempt to reflect on the implications of this for psychoanalytic practice.
 
Keywords: orthopaedics of the ego; identification; the moorings of speech; Echo; the image.