Intensive psychoanalytic study and analysis of the ways in which the ego resolves or attempts to deal with intrapsychic conflicts, especially in relation to the development of mental mechanisms and the maturation of capacity for rational thought and action. Modern psychoanalysis gives more emphasis to considerations of the defensive operations of the ego than did earlier techniques, which emphasized instinctual forces to a greater degree.
An important set of modifications of classical psychoanalysis based on a conception of the human being as having a stronger, more autonomous ego with gratifications independent of id satisfactions.