A brief history of the super-ego with an introduction to three papers

ABSTRACT

The paper gives a survey of the origin of the concept of the super-ego in Freud’s work and its further elaboration within the different psychoanalytic traditions. It introduces three papers on the perverse and psychotic super-ego, the development of the concept in Bion’s work and its significance for psychoanalytic social psychology.

KEY WORDS:

• super-ego
• psychoanalytic tradition
• psychoanalytic social psychology

Notes

1 Already here he attributes the function of judgement to the cathexis of a disparate portion of the ego (Freud 1950a, Ch. 17, p. 331-332).

2 The term “eine Stufe im Ich” – “a grade within the ego” (Freud 1923b, p.28) occurs already in “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (Freud 1921c, p. 129) and could also be translated more literally as a “step” within the ego.

3 In „Civilization and its discontents“ he mentions “that the severity of the super-ego which a child develops in no way corresponds to the severity of treatment which he has himself met with“, referring in a footnote to the work of Melanie Klein (Freud 1930a, p. 489). He returns to the theme in “An outline of psychoanalysis” (Freud 1940 a, p. 205).

4 A suggestion that had already been made by Ferenczi (1925).

5 Klein (1957) defines this as follows: „The ‘envious super-ego’ is felt to disturb or annihilate all attempts at reparation and creativeness. It is also felt to make constant and exorbitant demands on the individual’s gratitude.” (p. 231)

6 For a comprehensive overview of these developments see Spillius, Milon, Garvey, Couve and Steiner (2011, pp. 147-165).