Dr. Shane approves of my main thesis, namely, that in the context of conflict theory it is time to go beyond the ego and the id. He agrees that there is no need at present to conceive of the mind as divisible into separate agencies. The main body of his discussion, however, has to do with areas of disagreement. To be specific, he disagrees with me in some respects as to the value and applicability of conflict theory, and he presents his own views on this subject in a most clear and interesting way. One would have to go far to find a better exposition of the criticisms of conflict theory that persuade Dr. Shane, together with many other analysts, that conflict theory is, in certain respects, inadequate and incomplete. I find his criticisms of conflict theory worthy of the most serious attention and I am much tempted to respond to them, but I shall restrain myself. I shall merely commend Dr. Shane's discussion to the reader as something to be studied with attention and reserve to some later date my own comments about his views.
Dr. Mahon's discussion so captures one's interest by its charm and wit that it is only when one is able to read and reread it that one realizes how widely Dr. Mahon has cast his net. He has included in it a great variety of topics and has commented on a number of my earlier papers as well as on the present one. As in the case of my response to Dr. Shane, I shall resist the temptation to explore at this time many of the delightful vistas of psychoanalytic disputation that Dr. Mahon has spread before us. I shall restrict my remarks to what has directly to do with the topic at hand, that is, with the advisability of continuing to conceive of the mind as consisting of separable agencies. Dr. Mahon questions whether "emphasis on the mind as conflict and compromise formation [may not] tend to exclude the body." I confess that I do not see how. It does not seem to me that the idea of the mind as consisting of separable agencies or structures either helps one to understand the indubitable truth that one's own body has from very early in life a special place in one's mental life or underlines its significance. That the body has such a special place I don't doubt for a moment. But neither do I see how the idea that one can best understand mental development and functioning on the basis of conflict and compromise formation does any injustice to that fact or minimizes its importance.
Another question raised by Dr. Mahon is whether "the emphasis on conflict and compromise tend[s] to ignore the apparatus, the constitutional skeleton of the ego that will bring to each conflict its own unique point of view." Gross examples of such constitutional differences, Dr. Mahon pointed out, are afforded by blindness or color blindness, and, he believes, by dyslexia. He continued, "Could it not be argued that it is the inimitable mold of each particular ego with its constitutional quirks and temperamental givens that adds a formal dimension to conflict that may be as fundamental as the content of conflict itself?"
I think that Dr. Mahon and I would agree on the role played by sensory defects, intellectual capacity, physical handicaps, exceptional talents, and the like in the conflicts of any individual patient whom we chanced do discuss. But is it not begging the question to attribute these factors to the "ego"? The question is not whether such factors are of importance in an individual's development and mental functioning. Everyone will agree that they are and I, at least, agree that they may be of decisive importance in some cases. The question is whether the very idea that there is a part of the mind to be called the ego is to be given a place in our theory of the mind or not. That is what is at issue and that is what I call into question.
