The Seba library treats Parasitic Ego in 6 passages, across 6 authors (including Schwartz, Richard C, Bulkeley, Kelly, Jung, Carl Gustav).
Though burdens can embed so thoroughly they seem to the client to be in the body’s DNA, they are parasitic. If the exile does still have burdens, we ask where it carries them in or on its body
Schwartz explicitly names the psychological burdens carried by exiled parts as parasitic, arguing that however deeply embedded they appear, they remain alien to the self and subject to unburdening.
, Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1995thesis
the reverse-learning theory of Crick and Mitchison holds that REM sleep works to remove negative, parasitic modes of behavior from the brain.
Bulkeley summarises Crick and Mitchison’s neuropsychological position that REM sleep serves to purge parasitic behavioral patterns from the brain, framing the parasitic mode as a target of biological elimination.
, An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming, 2017thesis
The mistletoe is a parasite. The female fire-stick, the fire-mother, was obtained from the wood of a parasitic or creeping plant for the Indian fire-boring ceremony.
Jung elaborates the mythological symbolism of the parasite — the mistletoe that kills Baldur — as an image of the clinging, regressive attachment that destroys the living tree-self, providing the archetypal substrate for the concept of a parasitic ego.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952supporting
one part of the personality as a ‘progressed’ false self, located in the mind, with a regressed true self as its ‘client.’
Kalsched, synthesising Winnicott, describes how a dissociated false self effectively parasitises the true self, positioning itself as protective while feeding upon and eclipsing the genuine personality.
, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit, 1996supporting
the addiction remains in control, calling the shots and dictating to the hijacked ego what it
Schoen characterises the addiction complex as a force that hijacks and effectively parasitises the ego, directing its behaviour from within while foreclosing authentic self-connection.
, The War of the Gods in Addiction: C.G. Jung, Alcoholics Anonymous and Archetypal Evil, 2020supporting
acquisitive and attributive states can be identified by their characteristic countertransference.
Mizen’s discussion of acquisitive and attributive ego-states in the clinical context of alien-self dynamics gestures toward the parasitic ego’s structural operations within the transference relationship.
, The Self and alien self in psyche and somaaside