The wisdom of the ego

Introduction
Why Praise the Human Ego?
	Figure 1. A model of the adaptive mind at work, illustrating the defenses of isolation and displacement.
A Matter of Definition
	Figure 2. The four lodestars of human conflict.
	Table 1. Contrasting ways of altering the conscious representation of a conflict
	Table 2. Mutually exclusive ways of identifying the defenses
Self-Deceptions of Everyday Life
Necessary Questions
How Can We Prove That Defenses Exist?
	Table 3. Correlations between maturity of defenses and measures of successful adult outcome
	Table 4. Relation of maturity of defensive style and late midlife adjustment of men in the College sample
	Table 5. Use of defenses by the most depressed and the least distressed men in the College sample
	Table 6. Correlations between maturity of defenses and biopsychosocial antecedents
	Table 7. Relative frequency of use of a given defense as a major defensive style
	Table 8. Ethnicity and the use of selected defenses among men in the Core City sample
	Table 9. Effect of cognitive impairment and alcohol abuse on maturity of defenses among men in the Core City sample
The Ego and Adult Development
	Figure 4. A model of adult development (This is essentially Erik Erikson’s model of the adult life cycle with the addition of Stages 6A and 7A.
	Figure 5. Age of mastery of selected psychosocial tasks.
	Table 10. Psychosocial stages reached by members of the three samples
	Table 11. Independence of psychosocial developmental stage from social class, intelligence, and education
	Table 12. Percentage of Core City men assigned clinically to Stages 6-7 who mastered a majority of objective criteria reflecting Stages 6A and 7
	Table 13. Correlations between maturity of psychosocial stage and major outcome variables
Life Histories
The Ego and Creativity
	Table 14. Major differences between the more and the less creative Terman women
	Table 15. Major differences between the more and the less creative College men
Sylvia Plath: Creativity and Psychotic Defenses
Anna Freud: Mature Defenses
Eugene O’Neill: The Maturation of Defenses
Disadvantage, Resilience, and Mature Defenses
	Table 16. Eleven vulnerable Core City men and their risk factors
	Table 17. Potential sources of resilience
How Does the Ego Mature?
Acknowledgments
	Credits