Ego at Work: The Dynamics of Defense Mechanisms within Freud’s Structural Model of the Mind — with Reference to Saadat Hasan Manto and Kartar Singh Duggal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53573/rhimrj.2026.v13n01.009Keywords:
defense mechanisms, structural model, ego psychology, Saadat Hasan Manto, Kartar Singh Duggal, psychoanalysisAbstract
Defense mechanisms occupy a central place in psychoanalytic theory as unconscious strategies through which the ego manages internal conflict and external stress. Rooted in Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche—comprising the id, ego, and superego—these mechanisms enable the ego to negotiate instinctual drives, moral prohibitions, and the demands of reality. This article traces the development of defense mechanisms from Freud’s The Ego and the Id (1923) to Anna Freud’s The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), examining how processes such as repression, projection, rationalization, and sublimation function as dynamic ego operations. Integrating contemporary perspectives, including George Vaillant’s hierarchical classification of defenses and insights from trauma theory and neuroscience, the paper demonstrates the continued relevance of Freud’s structural model. It further argues that literary texts—particularly the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto and Kartar Singh Duggal—vividly dramatize ego defense processes in characters confronting trauma, moral conflict, and social disintegration. Defense mechanisms are thus best understood not in isolation but as structured ego functions reflecting the ongoing negotiation between unconscious desire, internalized morality, and external reality.
References
Adler, Alfred. The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. Basic Books, 1956.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. University of California Press, 1978.
Erikson, Erik H. Childhood and Society. W. W. Norton, 1950.
Eysenck, Hans J. Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire. Viking, 1985.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann, Grove Press, 1967.
Freud, Anna. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. International Universities Press, 1936.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Translated by James Strachey, Hogarth Press, 1930.
—. Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. Translated by Alix Strachey, Hogarth Press, 1926.
—. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. 1917.
—. “Repression.” Translated by James Strachey, Standard Edition, vol. 14, 1915.
—. The Ego and the Id. Translated by Joan Riviere, Hogarth Press, 1923.
—. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by James Strachey, Basic Books, 1955.
Hartmann, Heinz. Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. International Universities Press, 1939.
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, 1992.
Horney, Karen. Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis. W. W. Norton, 1945.
Jung, Carl G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press, 1959.
Klein, Melanie. The Psycho-Analysis of Children. Hogarth Press, 1932.
Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Translated by Alan Sheridan, Norton, 1977.
Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization. Beacon Press, 1955.
Solms, Mark, and Oliver Turnbull. The Brain and the Inner World. Other Press, 2002.
Vaillant, George E. Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for Clinicians and Researchers. American Psychiatric Press, 1992.
Westen, Drew. “The Scientific Legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a Psychodynamically Informed Psychological Science.” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 124, no. 3, 1998, pp. 333–371.
Winnicott, D. W. Playing and Reality. Routledge, 1971.
