Reiterated ideal of going along a path of 'returning' to a very pure soul that is always a good boy or girl after they did or thought some bad in their life, couple that with seeking higher whereat when the analog of knocking on the door to get to the High, knock who's there?.. so and so... turned down from entry to higher level, until eventually the answer that gets the person through door might not be what the seeker earlier expected. Up around there is one of the baselines or well known set of ideas, that serves as part of the backdrop for the comparison explained here.
On the practical level, what's going on today?, around us, our society, in spring of 2026? Especially here in the USA.
This blog post is intended to be a 5 minute jotting of thoughts, not a PhD thesis with grammar 'Flesch- Kincaided' pumped up, etc.
However, I'm pretty sure a lot of PhD candidates are going through, or if they aren't, might want to consider going through, motions that run along the lines of this discussion right through here.
What's going on, 2026...?
In 1970 Dr Heinz Hartmann passed.
'70s kid'. Studious folks may be familiar with the concept. If you look around, 70s babies are at the prime of holding influential positions and posts right around now. People that are in the age group of late 40s to early 60s, just before average technical retirement age (62), are prominent lawyers, doctors, authorities, law enforcement chiefs, etc.
70s kids parents, if the average parent had their child between age 20 and 30, had their previous generation known also as baby boomers, so 70s kids were the kids of 50s kids, and so on.
50s kids were the kids of WWII timeframe kids. WWII, kids those of WWI, and so on.
Hypothetically Dr Hartmann around the late 1960s, early 1970, may have been considered 'at the top of the heap and game' of aspects of the psychology field by aspects of the psychology field here in the USA, especially as it relates to society.
The idea of supreme or supremacy, in terms of the seasoned most scientist, and eldest for a genre, of those that were walking and talking in the practical sense.
'50s kids, the baby boomers, were the crop that was entering college or in college, finishing degrees etc, at around age 18 to 20, which fits the puzzle, logic, timeline, almost exact to the scissor cut. Right at that time, Hartmann was considered pretty much boss for psychology/society subject matters in certain academe.
Basically, if you're a 70s kid living in America and your parents were 50s kids the same, and they were going to colleges and top notch colleges back in the late 60s early 70s, there's a chance that they may have at least heard about ideas of Dr Hartmann, either directly or somewhere in the ripple pool of psychologist, neuroscientists, the ilk and group. Impacts varying. Scale of 0 to 10 for example.
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There were a number of leading psychologists, students, lecturers, that were functioning in that time frame, many of which either knew or were aware of the others.
The link might not take you directly to photo, but the idea to is there.
As far as the picture, it's not the central theme of this write-up, but it did readily present itself and 'right there', so, go ahead and put it on in there, it'll only take a few seconds, deal.
What that photo is: 'English: Freud and other psychoanalysts : (left to right seated) Freud, Sàndor Ferenczi, and Hanns Sachs (standing) Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Max Eitingon, and Ernest Jones'.
...Basically, if you're a 70s kid... there's a chance that some of Dr Hartmann's ideas 'came home', meaning were in the hindsight, in the foresight, and places in between, of how 70s kids were raised by 50s kids, how doctors and the police that were 50s kids, interacted with 70s kids, using psychoanalysis tools they were exposed to included in their basis. (Parents that did not raise their kids, neglect, and those vagaries included; this refers more to the generation, not the how well raised.)
[Might not be everybody everywhere, for example, households way out from cities in Native Reservations where the parents weren't sitting in the front rows of college auditoriums for hours 5 and 7 days a week being the audience of psychoanalytic theory promulgated by folks the Freud circles.]
What were some of those Dr Hartmann ideas?
Hmmm, ego... id... conflict-free sphere... adaptation... syntonic.
Stuff like that. Meaning, those are some of words found today in English, in, the answer to the question, (differentiated from, just the answer to the question).
Were there some times when focusing on id and ego, and adapting to conceptions of American folkways, the best medicine for a challenge, in day to day living?
If 990 out of a 1000 teenagers are all dancing to some popular songs at a concert with their hair dyed, wearing athletic shoes that costs the amount of a used car, say around 1990, does that make the 10 holdouts weird? Do those 10 holdouts, the 'abnormal' boys and girls, need to go to jail, says an 'educated' on psychoanalytic theory, law enforcement guy, or bounty hunter, (which may have been accompanied with an attitude and attitudeless attitude)?
At this point obviously no.
What if 7 out of the last 10 were all slapped with a label, psychiatrically ill, or having schizophrenia, because they must be 'split', schizo meaning split, into multiples, a normal teenager, that must be at concert with joke costing shoes, you pick a color other than brown, black, red or blonde for hair spray, listening to music that hasn't been heard about since 2 days after it came out, on the one end, and split forms when the other 'multiple' says, sit down, stay sober and under control?
Yeah, said softly, digressions might be involved here a little bit too.
'Normal' American kids for a time were expected to take a bath in the morning, comb their hair, put on some nice clothes that fit their or their parent's cloth, be respectful, go to school and act 'nice'.
Slowly over time, the normal kid, seen on the cover of toy box of some sort, combed hair, plaid button down shirt, jeans, at the movies with his soon to be wife, digressed to a rowdy rebellious with marriage the last thing on his mind.
Going back to, when 7 out 10 kids are 'psychologically troubled', per the dub of the local 50s kids, a.k.a. 'the system', either trying to tap their parents piggy bank by asking them to pay exorbitant fees to psych institutions, usually, the reality was healthy kids being robbed- the 3 kids left, are they to be jailed too because of all the nonsense?
What did go on from the 50s, to through the 60s, on through where we are today? Obviously there was a lot of convoluted trash that happened, that got mixed up in medical and psychological science, advances, but, where is the tracing back to the core of where the problems all began, or some of them?
As some readers already on thread have figured out, the staircase in reverse while doing the trace, may have gotten started before the 50s. There are folks still alive, might be older like 90 to 100 plus years old, that saw all this go down.
Quickly, here is what AI, artificial intelligence, results on Google have to say, as of about the time of this writing:
{Question/query:} What were political motivations and allegiances of Heinz Hartmann?
{AI responses:}
+8
Heinz Hartmann (1894–1970) was a prominent Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst whose political motivations and allegiances were shaped by the need to escape Nazi persecution and the subsequent desire to establish psychoanalysis as a scientifically respectable, adaptable, and "Americanized" medical science. He is known as the key figure in the development of ego psychology. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Political Motivations and Context
Escape from Nazism: Hartmann’s primary political motivation during the late 1930s was survival. He left Austria with his family in 1938 to escape the Nazis, passing through Paris and Switzerland before settling in New York in 1941.
Adaptation and "Normalcy": Following his forced emigration, Hartmann focused heavily on the concept of adaptation to an "average expectable environment," as outlined in his 1939 work Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. This was partly a response to the upheaval he and other European analysts experienced, aiming to understand how individuals can remain "normal" or "healthy" in a changing, often hostile, world.
Opposition to Totalitarianism: His work on the autonomous ego—which emphasizes adaptation rather than solely instinctual, chaotic drives—has been interpreted as a contrast to the, at the time, growing influence of totalitarian, irrational ideologies that disregarded individual ego strength.
Americanization of Psychoanalysis: In the US, Hartmann and his colleagues (Ernst Kris and Rudolph Loewenstein) moved away from the more speculative aspects of psychoanalysis to align it with psychiatry and American medicine, emphasizing the ego's role in functioning and social integration. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Allegiances and Professional Influence
The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society: Hartmann was a student and follower of Sigmund Freud in Vienna and part of a key generation of followers that included Anna Freud, Ernst Kris, and Helene Deutsche.
Ego Psychology Triumvirate: In New York, he formed what was known as the ego-psychology triumvirate with Ernst Kris and Rudolph Loewenstein, which became the dominant psychoanalytic paradigm in America for over three decades.
Leadership Positions: He served as president of the International Psychoanalytical Association (1951–57) and the New York Psychoanalytic Association (1952–54), cementing his role as a leader in mainstream, "orthodox" (but heavily adapted) psychoanalysis.
Opposition to Lacan: Hartmann was a notable opponent of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose views on the ego contrasted sharply with Hartmann’s structural ego psychology. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Hartmann's work was considered to be a key, yet often criticized, attempt to integrate psychoanalysis into the mainstream, creating a more "optimistic" view of human nature that favored environmental adaptation over pure instinctual conflict. [1, 2]
Heinz Hartmann - Wikipedia
In 1938, he left Austria with his family to escape the Nazis. Passing through Paris and then Switzerland, he arrived in New York in 1941 where he quickly became...
Wikipedia
Hartmann, Heinz (1894-1970) - Encyclopedia.com
Hartmann was analyzed by Freud, and became a key member of his generation of Freud's followers at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (a group including Helene an...
Encyclopedia.com
Anna Freud & Heinz Hartmann's Contributions to Psychology - Lesson
Hartmann believed that children are born ready to deal with the demands of the environment around them. In other words, they can adapt to their environment, a p...
Study.com
Hartmann, Heinz - Encyclopedia.com
In 1939 he published his paper Ich-Psychologie und Anpassungsproblem, translated into English in 1958 as Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. Like Anna...
Encyclopedia.com
(PDF) From Ego Psychology to Modern Conflict Theory - ResearchGate
Feb 12, 2018 — Although Anna Freud would go on to establish herself in London in 1938, it would be in. America that her work took hold wherein ego psychology would become the ...
ResearchGate
Heinz Hartmann: Pioneer of Ego Psychology | PDF - Scribd
Heinz Hartmann: Pioneer of Ego Psychology. Heinz Hartmann was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst born in 1894, known for his contributions to Ego Psycho...
Scribd
Narcissism and the “Relational Revolution” of the 1960s - Dialnet
Beginning with his famous “mirror-stage” lecture, delivered to the Marienbad psychoanalytic congress in 1936, Lacan argued that psychical development began not ...
Dialnet
Heinz Hartmann Facts for Kids
Oct 17, 2025 — In 1939, Hartmann wrote a very important paper. He showed that people often focused too much on mental conflicts. He pointed out that there is also a "sphere wi...
Kids encyclopedia facts
William Menninger and American psychoanalysis, 1946–48 - HAL
Mar 1, 2011 — Moreover, their participation in World War II, which many would later recall as the high point of their careers, led them to conceptualize psychoanalysis in way...
Archive ouverte HAL
Heinz Hartmann - Wikipedia
Heinz Hartmann (Austrian German: [ˈhartman]; November 4, 1894 – May 17, 1970) was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is considered one of the founde...
Wikipedia
Hartmann, Heinz (1894-1970) - Encyclopedia.com
Physician and psychoanalyst Heinz Hartmann was born in Vienna on November 4, 1894, and died in Stony Point, NY, on May 17, 1970. Hartmann's family had been dist...
Encyclopedia.com
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Dr Hartmann, NY Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1939 did a piece of writing that was first published in German. Later translated into English.
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Now on to begin reading
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Perhaps without the afterthought of the maybe medicine in a spoonful, the help of what this post might be intended to do might not be accelerated --
🥄🥣
If you're a teenager going to school, it's okay to show up with your clothes ironed.
At lunch, it's okay to eat a good soup, or Challah bread, or have in the lunch box a combination of some fruits like a bunch of grapes or a few lychee.
🍇🍲🙂
Other students might poke fun; either a sandwich, school lunch, or local fast food lunch deal, (which these days can cost anywhere from $10 to $20, enough to gas a parent's car up with gas for half the week to get to work to pay for the school), is 'lunch'; anything outside that, regardless of what's best for the kid or what's healthy, is 'weird'.
Lunch break doesn't have to be inundated with music from a stereo blasting the latest set of noise, nor sneaking in illicit substances behind the school building.
