Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Lecture Four Part 2 " How the Mind Develops" Oral Stage

THE ORAL STAGE CONTINUED............. The infant in the first or so of life has a beginning ego, but this ego is feeble. It is weak and rudimentary in it's structure. And therefore it is not yet prepared to handle the seven basic emotional needs of the id, and to meet them appropriately. These emotional needs drive right through the ego to get met with objects ( persons) in the outside world. The baby ego believes that what it needs it can have. No questions asked--no inhibitions and no delays. Freud said the early ego omnipotently hallucinates what it needs and creates the delusion that it has it. Melanie Klein referred to this phase as the paranoid/schizoid position. Freud understood this type of thinking and experiencing as the Primary Process. He further spoke of this as the stage of narcissism and moving toward he beginning of object choice ( Anal sadism says Ellman, 2010.) For Freud psychopathology at this time, when the infant is either fixated in or the adult had regressed to this stage, could result in psychotic level illnesses, including schizoprenia and meloncholia (major depression.) Narcissistic/borderline were also possible at this level due to the primitive defenses required to protect the ego from overshelming affects..........As earlier stated, Mark Solms and neuropsychoanalysis believe that the major need that most demands to be met at this time is PANIC/GRIEF (Attachment.) And the pleasure of attaching to the caregiver is equally pleasureable to taking nourishment into the mouth. The unpleasure of not being securely attached is also equally painful to not being able to take in nourishment through the mouth. The infant develops it's attachment figure in the first six months of life. If this is a good enough attachment, the infant will usually do well and move on through the later developmental stages. If the infant is not able to sufficiently attach to the attachment figure, it's attachment need will not get met and the infant will experience PANIC/GRIEF. Depending on how realistic or unrealistic is the infant's repressed prediction, it will need to use certain defenses against the unbearable feelings. At this early time in life the prediction may be quite unrealistic, and therefore the baby ego will need the more primitive defenses, such as denial and disavowel, to deal with the unpleasant feelings of panic and/or grief. The more primitive the defenses chosen, the more severe the level of psychopathology, because these more desparate primitive defenses are less likely to work in fending off the unpleasant feelings. And they further distort the reality testing ability of the ego more severely.