Reality Testing

"Reality testing" is defined as the process through which the psyche gauges the difference between the internal and external worlds. Freud first defined this process as founded on perception and motility, but as he progressively elaborated his theory of the ego, reality testing became one of the functions of the ego. Freud's most complete description of this concept occurs in "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1916-1917f [1915]), where it appears in tandem with another concept, the "reality-indicator," which...