The three stages

These three stages are the beginnings of ego development. Spitz states, “A structuration has taken place within the somatopsyche. Ego and id are separating from each other and the rudimentary ego begins to function.”


To be clear of what the “ego” actually is, www.encarta.com has defined the “ego” as, “PSYCHOANALYSIS part of mind containing consciousness: in Freudian psychology, one of three main divisions of the mind, containing consciousness and memory and involved with control, planning, and conforming to reality”

After exploring the id and ego during the development of infants, Spitz wrote A GENETIC FIELD THEORY OF EGO FROMATION:Its Implications for Pathology in 1959. As the title suggests, this book addresses how the ego is formed. In the very beginning of this book, Dr. Spitz begins with discussing three different stages that develop with in the first year of life. These stages go right along with the stages discussed in his book, THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE. There are, however, different names given for each stage. The first three months of life are what he said Anna Freud, Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein call, “the undifferentiated stage.” Earlier in this paper, it had been discusses that there is “reception and perception.” These things are what begin to form the ego. Dr. Spitz has said that there is no difference between “perception” and the behavior response to that stimulus because it is not specific, meaning that the behavior is random. It is stated that, “…on one hand that it can take place or it can not take place; on the other hand, if it does take place, it can occur in any of the sectors of the infant’s body capable of functioning at this age.”