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Many contemporary theorists of various orientations view development and psychopathology through a multi-perspectival lens, including both, conflict and deficit. Some theories tend towards privileging the deficit model; for example, Self- Psychology emphasizes deficits in the Self as the result of inadequately empathic parenting and, views the analyst’s empathic understanding, besides the interpretation of conflict, as the central component of therapeutic action (Kohut, 1984). Still others, like some Relational and Interpersonal schools, have shifted the focus from both internal deficit and conflict (Auchincloss and Samberg, 2012), emphasizing instead that the intrapsychic realm is being forged in a relationship with others within the larger culture (Ingram, 1985). The editors of the recent American Psychoanalytic Association’s publication, “Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts” (Auchincloss & Samberg, 2012) reflect on contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives’ increased appreciation of the significance of developmental issues in relation to conflicts. Conflicts arise in development in response to a sequence of predictable, developmental phase specific unconscious threats, so called internal danger situations. In normal early development, pre-Oedipal conflicts arise between the child and his/her environment, between opposing wishes and feelings, and between superego precursors and drives. The threat to the child in pre-Oedipal conflicts is the fantasized danger of loss of the object and loss of the love of the object. Oedipal conflicts , of greater complexity, demonstrate the child’s capacity for triadic object relations as well as other aspects of ego maturation and development. At the Oedipal stage, the threat to the child involves the fantasied danger of injury (castration complex). Subsequently, through the processes of internalization and identification, the prohibitive forces originally associated with the parental control, have become forces within the child’s own mind. Such a process is evident in superego formation, a developmental milestone, achieved through the resolution of the Oedipus complex. At this stage, the threat to the child is the internal condemnation of the superego. While some conflicts partially resolve as development continues, others exist throughout life, leading to various degrees of psychopathology. The manifestation of conflict varies in accordance with developmental levels, psychopathology, and cultural factors. Child psychoanalysts also describe developmental conflicts, which are normal, predictable, and usually transitory (Tyson & Tyson, 1990). These are conflicts due to normative phase specific maturational forces within the child that bring the child into the conflict with his/her environment. When the internalization of the external demand has been accomplished, this specific developmental conflict will dissolve and a further step towards structuralization and character formation will have been taken (ibid, pp. 42-43). III. B. Ego Psychological Perspectives The psychoanalytic models that give more weight to the conflict are those that highlight the role of ego and drives, as the classical model and Ego Psychology. The conflict has been given greater weight by the contemporary heir of Ego Psychology, the so-called Modern
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