ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses conflict, defense, and the occasional morbid resolution of a conflict into a symptom. It discusses the side of the ego that faces toward health. While the formation of a symptom is an attempt at self-healing which proved ill-advised, most such efforts have better outcomes. The chapter commences the study of resilience in the ego with a series of examples drawn from a vicissitude that is all too frequent: falling out of love. External conformity, going through the motions, does not lend the strength of character which affords resilience. Psychic energy is also consumed in great amounts in the effort it takes to sustain a defense. Memory serves as a significant and readily understandable instance of such a process whereby the ego is weakened and psychic energy can be utilized less effectively. Looseness of ego boundaries, in more extreme forms, also permits the eruption into the conscious part of the mind of ideas and images kept repressed.
