Ego, The

The organizing, reality-based part of the psyche. In the 1990s, Diamond paired it with the concept of the Muse*, the deepest part of ourselves, which is pure love. In this model, the Muse continually emits a message of pure love which is then modified by the ego into socially appropriate actions so that we can operate in the world. In doing this, however, the ego inadvertently distorts the Muse message, thereby leading to misprocessing*.

Commentary: While Diamond’s usage of ego is obviously adapted from Freud, its pairing with the Muse in Diamond’s work is quite distinct from the Freudian model, in which the ego is seen as the negotiating agent between the id and the super-ego.

See also: Muse, The*; Misprocessing*