The Superego (Ideas in Psychoanalysis) - Softcover

Roth, Priscilla

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1840462469 ISBN 13: 9781840462463

Publisher: Icon,Totem Books, 2001

Synopsis

Everyone breaks rules. But what is the disapproving voice inside our heads that chides and criticises us for it? In psychoanalysis this voice is called the superego, which Freud conceived as the infantile internalising of parental authority and a manifestation of the sublimated Oedipus complex. This book examines how important the superego is in passing on moral standards and codes of behaviour from one generation to the next – but at the same time, how can it lead to distressing states of mind from which many people suffer, particularly depression.

Priscilla Roth looks at examples of the many ways in which our superego can manifest itself in familiar everyday incidents, and shows how our feelings and behaviour are affected by it even when we're not aware of its presence. Using case material from psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, she demonstrates what kinds of experiences may lie behind the hidden, but very powerful, effects our superegos have on us.

About this title

About the Author

Priscilla Roth is a Training Analyst at the British Institute of Psychoanalysis and a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, London. She lectures at both these institutions, and at University College, London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Everyone has a superego. Not everyone calls it a superego. Some people call it a conscience, or even a guilty conscience; some people call it morality. But whatever it's called, everyone has one. Your superego is most recognisable as (but, as we will see, is not limited to) that voice inside your head which won't let you do something wrong (illegal, immoral, unkind) even when nobody else would know. And which punishes you from inside when you succumb to temptation and do something that you know you shouldn't have done...and sometimes even when you haven't.

You could think about it as being your 'conscience', but the Freudian idea of a superego is not exactly the same as a conscience, although they share many similar qualities and characteristics. One of the biggest differences between the very ancient idea of 'conscience' and the psychoanalytic extension of it called 'the superego', is that the concept of the superego recognises that there is often very little relation between what a person consciously thinks is permissible, and what the superego actually allows him or her to do. Or, to put it the other way round: we can sometimes feel very guilty, or experience a vague feeling of badness, without having much awareness of what we've done to make us feel guilty and bad. People often, for instance, find themselves feeling anxious when questioned at customs at the airport, or pulled over by a policeman for a routine check, even when they can't think of anything they've done that is actually illegal.

To further complicate matters, sometimes our superego speaks quite directly and straightforwardly inside us: 'Get down to work NOW; you've been procrastinating long enough!', or 'DO NOT eat another chocolate!', or 'If you leave the dirty dishes on the table, you'll just have to do them when you come home, so do them before you go out!' Sometimes it is more punitive: 'You are a nasty, unkind person to treat your sister like that; you REALLY are a nasty unkind person to treat your sister like that.' And sometimes it is very punitive: 'You are an unspeakably, horribly nasty person. You don't deserve anybody's friendship or love. You only deserve to be miserable.' All of these are ways the superego can directly instruct or attack us from inside ourselves.

On the other hand, often it is too painful to have such a voice inside, so we somehow manage to perceive it as being located in other people: 'My sister hates me for being a little tiny bit unkind to her – she is oversensitive and really cold and always making me feel bad.' 'My boss is forever accusing me of being late.' 'I know those people think I'm fat and disgusting when they see me eating chocolate.' And frequently our superego directs us, or prohibits us from doing things, and we're not even aware of the process; we're perhaps just aware that something inexplicable is going on inside us: 'I don't know why, but I just don't feel like going to that party.'; 'I don't know...I can just never relax until I've finished all my homework.'; 'I'm completely happy being a little fish in a little pond; no great ambitions for me!' At these times, our superego is invisible, or inaudible, or – as psychoanalysts would describe it – unconscious. We don't know that it is having a powerful effect on our feelings, our wishes and our behaviour.

In this essay, I explain what psychoanalysts mean by 'the superego' and why it is a useful and important concept. In order to show where it fits into psychoanalytic theory, first I discuss Freud's two models of how the mind works. Then I address the question: 'Is the superego necessary?' (Why do we have to have a superego? Wouldn't we be better off without one?) I fill in the descriptions outlined briefly below: what a person's superego sounds and feels like; what it is like when it is inside us telling us what to do and what not to do, and how it can be projected outside, so that we feel other people are criticising and judging us; or even how we can turn it on others, so that it judges other people to protect ourselves from its harshness. And I ask: 'What are the signs of a superego working unconsciously?'

I end with a discussion on the origins of the superego – the events of childhood that leave each of us with an internal critical and judgemental agency – and explore some of the different views psychoanalysts currently hold about these origins.

About this edition

• Publisher: Icon,Totem Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1840462469
• ISBN 13: 9781840462463
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80