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From: William Rosenthal
Date: 05 Oct 2006
Time: 01:10:51 -0500
Remote Name: 67.161.14.54
Hello Stephanie, First, I think that there may a bit of confusion. I do not believe that Freud used the 'iceberg' concept. That idea belongs to Joseph Sheehan and his notion that there is much about stuttering that is beneath the surface. What we observe in stuttering is just a small part of the picture. That said, here is a bit more about ego states. The rough equivalence between Freud and Berne is this. Parent-Super Ego; Adult-Ego; Child-Id. This is only a rough correspondence because Freud's notion of ego states was as structural constructs that fit his theory of psychic developement and its influence on a persons psychological life. Berne derived his notion of ego states from a clinical perspective. He noticed that his patients in the course of a therapy session sometimes seemed to make statements and actually sound different (inflection and tone of voice), depending on which ego state was in charge at any given moment. To him they were descriptions of real, active, interpersonal transactions, not just theoretical constructs. Of course Berne was trained initially as a psychoanalytic psychiatrist, so he was more than familiar with Freud's theories. As an expert clinical observer, however, he elaborated on and adapted Freud's themes. I can't really do justice to the richness of these men's works here. I suggest that if you are interested, you can read some of their original work. The first three items in the reference list are a good start. You certainly do not need to read the entire works, but find the parts that deal with the concept of ego states and you will get a richer picture. -WSR