You Ought To!

A Psychoanalytic Study of the Superego and Conscience

Bernard Barnett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781855759831
• eBook ISBN: 9780429924361
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The superego is one of those psychoanalytic concepts that has been assimilated into ordinary language, like repression, the unconscious and the Oedipus complex. Because it has become such a familiar notion, its complexity may not always be appreciated, nor the controversy that it can inspire. Its origins, for example, its timing in the course of development, whether and how it is influenced by gender all these questions and others have been the source of lively disagreement. For psychoanalysts it is a fundamental concept of their discipline, but it belongs to a meta psychology whose value is often questioned, and opinions might vary on whether it remains truly alive as a generative, energising idea in contemporary psychoanalysis.

Chapter One

Introduction

“Were uneasiness of conscience measured by extent of crime, human history had been different and one should look to see the contrivers of greedy wars and the mighty marauders of the money-market in one troop of self-lacerating penitents with the meaner robber and cut-purse and the murderer that doth his butchery in small with his own hand. No doubt wickedness hath its rewards to distribute; but whoso wins in this devil’s game must need be baser, more cruel, more brutal than the order of this planet will allow for the multitude born of women, the most of these carrying a form of conscience a fear which is the shadow of justice, a pity which is the shadow of love that hindereth from the prize of serene wickedness, itself difficult of maintenance in our composite flesh”

(Eliot, 1876)

“Born dependent, impulse ridden, fickle, egoistic, body bound, we grow up if the Fates do but grant us grace into independent, controlled (but spontaneous), constant, reasonably unselfish, spiritually far seeing and yet body-enjoying adults …

One of the means by which this remarkable transformation takes place is through the process of superego formation”

(Rickman, 1950)

In this book I seek a greater understanding of that which George Eliot refers to as “the devil’s game”. That is, I attempt a description, clarification, and exploration of certain conscious ideas and more deeply rooted unconscious ones that interact and relate to the growth and presence of “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong”, and morality and immorality, in the human psyche. Although my main focus is on the modern Freudian and post-Freudian theoretical exploration of the superego, the ego ideal, and so-called “unconscious guilt”, I also discuss the more traditional and more familiar ideas such as conscience, conscious guilt, and remorse and their relationship to psychoanalytic theory.

This chapter is concerned with a description of the main features of what I shall refer to as the system superego.¹

These are clarified and illustrated by means of simple case vignettes taken from clinical practice, press reports, and English literature.

The book is concerned with the nature of the superego system, its normal and abnormal development in the individual person, and some implications of how the system functions in relation to society as a whole.

I begin with a few examples that seek to illustrate the pathological or mal-development of the system at various levels of complexity.

Oxford undergraduate

A daily newspaper described the case of a young Oxford undergraduate, the president of the union, who had recently been expelled from the university for cheating. The reporter had commented on certain features of her personality and background. For example, that she had set herself very high standards and had acted under “pressure” of trying to combine student politics with her final examination. It was also said that she was “driven” by the achievement of an older sister, who had obtained first class honours at the same university. The journalist also reported that the young woman had attended a public school and that the school had a stated aim “to teach girls to govern themselves and their conduct by their reason and conscience”. When asked to comment on the incident, the headmistress had suggested that the cheating behaviour had been “out of character” and that the student had been one of “the best brains I have taught”.²

Laboratory technician

A newspaper reported on the case of a fifty-seven-year-old laboratory technician who, posing as a doctor, had committed indecent assaults on women for his own sexual and other gratification. He was described as having carried out worthless cervical smears and HIV tests for profit, and had thus misled female patients, leaving them in a dangerous situation, exposed and at risk. He had also managed to pose as an expert witness on behalf of accused drink drivers, for which he charged £ 8,000 a time. This man was found guilty of assault, wounding, and obtaining money by deception. He was described by the judge as a “one man medical crime wave” and was jailed for five years. In a reference he had previously written on his own behalf, he had said, “Onubogu is an enigma who we all admire and glorify”.³

A “hit and run” incident

A policeman was engaged in waving down a speeding driver. When he attempted to stop the car, he was hit and dragged for fifty yards along the road and fatally injured. The car, which then failed to stop, was later found abandoned and subsequently two men and a woman were arrested.⁴

A patient’s envious/jealous superego

K was a patient being treated in a psychiatric hospital. The analyst in charge of his case reported the following material: K had formed a relationship with H, a female patient, and they had successfully made love. However, immediately after love-making, K had strangled H and then presented himself to the police and confessed to murder. He was tried before a court, but pleaded that the couple had been playing sex games at H’s request. This plea was accepted by the court and he was given a short sentence (Sohn, 2000).

Discussion

These four examples have been selected to illustrate the range of behaviour that can be associated with ideas of conscience, guilt, and the pathological superego. In each case, the part of the mind linked to these ideas is seen to function in an abnormal or highly unusual way. In each, the individual concerned was, to a different degree, side-stepping the commonly experienced inner restraints on “uncivilized” behaviour.

Each example represents a different aspect of “the devil’s game” and each provides, to a lesser or greater degree, an illustration of the malfunctioning of the system superego. A measure of the failure involved is shown by the degree to which (in George Eliot’s words) “fear” and “pity”, “justice” and “love”, have made way for the prize of “serene wickedness”.

The example of the Oxford undergraduate appears to illustrate an isolated breakdown of conscience under certain specific environmental conditions. It seems that specific external and internal “pressures” (i.e., finals examination and the envy of a sister) had resulted in an impulsive, “atypical”, unethical act in a vulnerable personality. In this case, the comments of the student’s former headmistress also illustrates something of her own ideals of “self-government” and of educating and handing on to the university “the best brains”. What is clear is that this young student had failed to live up to the standards that had been laid down for her. The case also provides an illustration of the internalized other, a representation of parental (and other influential) standards and values present in the mind and the gap between it and conscience, or rather, a failure of conscience. An elaboration of the complicated processes that are associated with this discrepancy are further described and illustrated in Chapters Two and Three.

The case of the laboratory technician clearly demonstrates a very much more serious situation from the social point of view. This man’s crimes point to an extreme and prolonged failure of superego constraints at a psychopathic level. The well-planned and premeditated criminal acts, which were closely linked to sexual, aggressive, and financial gratification, had resulted in extremely harmful consequences for other people. In this instance, even on this limited evidence, the man’s criminal and sadistic behaviour can also be linked to certain features of his personality, in which extreme omnipotence, pathological narcissism, and naked greed appear to combine with a total absence of identification and empathy with the victims.

In the third example, which involved a hit and run incident, the environmental situation involved a group of persons acting together in a very seriously delinquent way. The incident reported appears to illustrate a mixture of so-called “road rage” with what may have been a panic reaction. This lethal combination appears to have produced an impulsive and murderous act when the victim was seen as interfering with the criminal behaviour. In this instance, the norms of civilized conduct were apparently over-ridden, and this resulted in the death of a mildly threatening (although perhaps not seen as such), anonymous authority figure. This example provides another instance of the complete lack of empathic identification with another human being, one that resulted in the victim’s loss of life.

My final illustration is taken from the psychiatric patient population to illustrate a particular type of superego pathology. It has been chosen to show how the grossly abnormal functioning of the superego can lead to an attack and weakening of the ego-self, which has abdicated control of the personality. The end result of this process leads in this instance to behaviour that is both self-harming and other-destructive.

The psychoanalyst who reports the case describes the pathological process along the following lines. The schizophrenic patient K came from an extremely disturbed background that was associated with delinquent parents, care orders, residential schools, drug taking (and “pushing”), and abandonment. The patient had idealized his absent mother and felt himself to be responsible for her delinquent actions. In communicating his understanding of the clinical material, the analyst (working in the Kleinian tradition) suggested to the patient that his act of making love to another patient, H, had been related to a psychotically envious part of K’s mind. The analyst’s conclusion was that “the envious superego” had madly and jealously overviewed K’s relationship to H, and had attacked it, and that this had resulted in the murder of H. In court, K’s presentation of H as sexually abnormal was, according to the analyst, an attempt to appease his own envious/jealous superego. A number of different theoretical approaches to the superego’s attack on the self, and on the other, will be found in Chapters Four and Five.

In the examples illustrated above, there is evidence that something had gone wrong with the operation of the usual restraints on behaviour that accompany a “normally functioning” superego, conscience, and sense of guilt. The rest of the book is concerned with the further, detailed exploration of the individual features of this superego system, in healthy development and in abnormal behaviour.

A selection of explanatory concepts⁵

In the illustrations and discussion above, the term superego and other related concepts have been used loosely and without further explanation or definition. In what follows, some attempt will be made to clarify them, at least in so far as they are used by the present writer. It should, nevertheless, be borne in mind that there is much overlap in meaning in these concepts, and that most of the differences described below are mainly matters of preference and emphasis, rather than substance.⁶

The “system superego”

In its broadest terms, this system covers aspects of the mind that are directly and indirectly associated with internal and external morality. The system is an umbrella term for a number of closely related concepts: superego (narrow meaning), ego ideal, the ego, the self, the conscience, the sense of guilt, the wish for punishment and remorse. In the widest sense, the functions of the system include observation of the ego, the setting of values and standards, making judgements, and inflicting self (and other) punishments. This process consists of a complex interplay of elements, involving conscious and unconscious aspects of the various functions, and these are discussed below.

The superego (narrow meaning)⁷

In its most limited sense, the term superego can be understood to refer to that part of a person’s mind that watches over the ego, judges it, criticizes it, and punishes it. It is mainly unconscious and derives its energy from deeply unconscious sources (i.e., from “the id”). As exemplified in the case illustrations above, this part of the mind can act upon the ego-self and/or the other sternly, cruelly, and murderously, but it can also adopt a more benign and loving attitude.⁸

The ego ideal

The ego ideal and the superego are closely related and not easily distinguishable. In the overall system, the superego “hovers” over the ego–self, keeps it under observation and judges its thoughts and actions. The ego ideal thus overlaps with this superego function of the mind, but it also offers the ego possibilities towards which it can aim. It is in this sense that the ego ideal can be understood as a representation of the standards by means of which the superego judges the ego and determines the way in which the subject must behave in order to respond to the superego’s authority.⁹

Since this ideal was first developed by the subject’s internalization of qualities derived from the primary caring figures in early childhood, it also has conscious and unconscious aspects. It stands apart from the ego-self, partly on account of its idealized character. It inherits the early mental state of narcissistic perfection, a developmental stage when the subject is merged in a perfect, gratifying union with the caring figure. It also plays a crucial role in ongoing mental development, since the subject seeks to repossess and restore the original omnipotence and the lost perfection of the narcissistic stage by projecting the ego ideal into the mother, who is the first ego ideal. This restorative aim gives rise to the fantasy of reunion with the mother (when, for example, a metaphorical “Garden of Eden” will be re-established). Since such perfection cannot be achieved in reality, the ego ideal only offers the subject an illusionary “approximation” to fulfilment. It is, therefore, always to be experienced as a journey without arrival. The role an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Dedication
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• FOREWORD
• CHAPTER ONE Introduction
• CHAPTER TWO The Freudian superego
• CHAPTER THREE The formation and development of the system
• CHAPTER FOUR The object and the superego
• CHAPTER FIVE Pathology, splitting, and fragmentation in the system: the superego, the object, and the Holocaust
• CHAPTER SIX The superego, the self, and morality: contemporary ideas and critical approaches
• REFERENCES
• INDEX