Totality in Groddeck's and Jung's Conception:EsandSelbst1

Abstract

The German pronoun Es has been used by Georg Groddeck since 1909 to represent the totality of the human being, a concept that allowed him to consider both mind and body together from a conceptual and therapeutic perspective. In 1923 - a month after the issue of Groddeck's most famous book - The Ego and the Id was published, where Freud resumed Groddeck's term with a much more restrictive meaning that has obscured the original one. Groddeck was very disappointed but continued to develop his own concept of das Es, which is significantly akin to the Jungian Selbst (self) mainly because of their common cultural background, with a prominent reference to Carus’ and Nietzsche's conception of the unconscious. In 1977, similar ideas have reemerged in psychoanalysis with Kohut's ‘self psychology,’ which nevertheless presents a more personalistic orientation.