S6, Ep 3 Best Friend Therapy: Ego - What is our ego supposed to do for us? When does ego get in our way? How can we strike a balance?

This week, Elizabeth shares a challenging work scenario, in which she found herself at the pointy end of someone else's ego.

We go back and look at the original meaning of ego through the eyes of Freud, with an overview of his theory of three-part personality, to build an understanding of how egotistical behaviour, narcissism and power-play intersect, and what we can do when we come up against “big egos” in our daily lives.

We wrestle with a tug of war between our instincts and morality and find our balance on a seesaw, which concludes that it’s good to talk and, if talking about feelings makes us less acceptable to some, we’re here for it.

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For more on Freud’s three-part psyche: https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html

Emma references the work of Dr Christine Dunkley and her work on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): https://amzn.eu/d/9yLqPUU

Elizabeth talks about Jung’s Collective Unconsciousness and Emma expands with group imago theory which you can read more about here: https://amzn.eu/d/eLujeLP and https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9780285647763/transactional-analysis-in-psychotherapy

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy