

He is stimulated not towards a rigid, cold, rational motor programmation, but towards a motor projection of the whole of the personality in its conscious or unconscious aspects. He draws his experience not from obligatory sequences, but from plastic schemes that have to be remounted and synthetised variously. The child receives efficacious stimulations in the following directions: he feels encouraged to displace his need in order to explore, construct, communicate and to know. favors an interiorised mental reconstruction of new schemes, new sequences new behaviors that are the projection of needs that, always more personal, are subordinated to ends that are always more complex.

Ego integrity vs despair free#
The complexity and specialisation are not necessarily higher in man than in animals but the ductility and the originality of movement are essential attributes that make man - and only man - free and creative. The essential aim of motor re-education is not the development of a complex and specialised movement, but the mastery of the ductility and of the motor originality. Implications for further research are discussed. Chronological age did not moderate these findings.Įgo integrity appears to be related to fluctuating states of mental health, whereas despair is more an expression of a general trait-like disposition of neuroticism. Neuroticism was related to despair and explained the relationship of depressive symptoms to despair.


The present study relates ego integrity and despair to contemporary theories of personality and mental health.Ī cross-sectional study of Dutch adults aged between 50 and 95 years (N = 218) was carried out, using the Northwestern Ego Integrity Scale, the subscales for neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience of the NEO-FFI, the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale-Short Form.Įxtraversion and openness to experience have an indirect relation to ego integrity that is mediated by well-being. Existing studies in the Eriksonian tradition found that ego integrity and despair are important indicators of life-span development.
