ego-syntonic

OCPD characteristics and behaviors are known as ego-syntonic, as persons with the disorder view them as suitable and correct.

It is frequently not investigated in psychotherapy because it is ego-syntonic, parallels cultural attitudes, and because therapists often share similar bias or neurotic conflict.

He saw psychic conflict arising when 'the original lagging instincts...come into conflict with the ego (or ego-syntonic instincts)'.

Otto Fenichel's grand summary of the first psychoanalytic half-century 'differentiated sharply between ego-syntonic morbid impulses and the ego-alien symptoms of compulsion neurotics'.

"Ego syntonic" was a taken-for-granted aspect of Freud's conceptual armoury, as in his formulation of 'the aim of psychoanalytic therapy, which is "to replace repressions which are insecure by reliable ego-syntonic controls"'.

His daughter, Anna Freud, would point out that 'the defences are harder to get at than the impulses, because...defenses against them are familiar, comfortable, unobjectionable, "ego-syntonic" ways of being, and are thus difficult to see as transference rather than as "real"'.

Later writers, exploring the gradual emergence of unconscious material, would note how 'the direct, unmitigated expression of a repressed semantic element would be highly "ego-dystonic", and it is considered more "ego-syntonic" for the repressed element to be only indirectly expressed'.

Additionally, personality disorders are inflexible and pervasive across many situations, due in large part to the fact that such behavior may be ego-syntonic (i.e. the patterns are consistent with the ego integrity of the individual) and are, therefore, perceived to be appropriate by that individual.

He saw 'impulsive actions, which are ego syntonic' as driven by 'the ego-syntonic impulses'; and conversely regarded neurotic symptoms 'as both painful and ego alien' - while still recognising the possibility of 'a reaction formation against a symptom, namely, the denial of the ego-dystonic character of the symptom'.