ABSTRACT
From the perspective of contemporary Freudian theory, the single most important development is its focus on intra-psychic conflict. Compromise formations represent a synthesis of the components of intra-psychic conflict, which comprise all conscious and unconscious mental activity. Conscious experience is a result of complexes of compromise formations that permit the translation of a mental phenomenon from primary process to secondary process form. Fundamental to this process is the development of self- and object-representations, defining superego functions. The consolidation of these self- and object-representations requires a synthesis, such that systems of prohibitions/ideals are relatively coherent and internally consistent. Failures of this synthetic process yield paradoxical discontinuities in superego functions. Illustrative clinical material is presented.
