Attachment
An emotional connection to someone else.
Competence motivation
The need to be effective or
successful in dealing with the environment.
Effectance motivation
The need to have an impact on
the environment.
Ego control
The extent to which a person controls or inhibits impulses.
Ego identity
The overall sense of self that emerges from your transactions with social reality.
Ego quality (ego strength or virtue)
The quality that
becomes part of your personality through successful
management of a crisis.
Ego resiliency
The ability to flexibly modify your typical level of ego control to adapt to new contexts.
Epigenesis
The idea (adopted from embryology) that
an internal plan for future development is present at the beginning of life.
Life-span development
The idea that developmental processes continue throughout life.
Mirroring
The giving of positive attention and supportiveness to someone.
Narcissism
A sense of grandiose self-importance and entitlement.
Narrative
A story you compose for yourself about about life to create a coherent sense of identity.
Object relations
An individual's symbolized relations to other persons (such as parents).
Play therapy
The use of play as a procedure for con- ducting therapy with children.
Psychosocial crisis (or conflict)
A turning point in a developmental period when some interpersonal issue is being dealt with and growth potential and vulnerability are both high.
Self psychology
Kohut's theory that relationships create the structure of the self.
Selfobject
The mental representation of another person who functions to satisfy your needs.
Separation-individuation
The process of acquiring a distinct identity; separating from fusion with the mother.
Strange situation
A procedure used to assess the attachment pattern of the infant to the mother.
Symbiosis
A period in which an infant experiences fusion with the mother.
Transference
The viewing of other people through selfobject representations originally developed for parents.