ABSTRACT
Since the publication of Freud's The Ego and the Id, the conception of the 'weak ego' has been commonly accepted. It is curious that this has come about so rapidly and with so little opposition inspite of the established psycho-analytic theory tracing all neurotic symptoms to the conflict between the sexual instincts and the interests of the ego. By 'working through' is to be understood a gradual change of the ego. Psycho-analytical ego psychology has also largely been founded upon the study of obsessions and depressions. As psycho-analytical ego-psychology and psycho-analytical pedagogy are almost of the same age, they have had a far-reaching influence on each other's development. Psycho-analytical treatment certainly does not work in favour of but rather against the super-ego, because it aims at making what has become rigid elastic again, and at turning the automatic 'categoric imperative' of the super-ego into decisions and actions of the ego freely made and adapted to the demands of reality.
