Ego reduction

The concept of ego reduction is predicated on the use of Sigmund Freud's concept of the ego to describe the conscious adult self; and broadly describes the deflating of an over-inflated or egotistical sense of oneself - a curtailment of what Iris Murdoch called “the anxious avaricious tentacles of the self”. Among other contexts, ego reduction has been seen as a goal in Alcoholics Anonymous; as a part of BDSM play, providing a means of entering "subspace"; and as a way of attaining religious humility and freedom from desire in Buddhism. Alcoholics Anonymous Harry Tiebout saw the surrender of the alcoholic in AA as dependent upon ego reduction, in the twin sense of a relinquishment of personal narcissism, and the development of a new trust in other people. Tiebout stressed that this was a process that should be applied only to the (over-extended) infantile ego the surviving remnants of an original megalomania that had not been worn away by the normal processes of life.