Superego Revisited—Relevant or Irrelevant?

Abstract

The superego has become a great and encompassing symbol that cannot be abolished without much concern. It is a symbol for the subjective experience of moral systems, as an inner part-person in conflict with other parts, a symbol for their various functions, affects, and contents, and a symbol for their objective genesis as discovered in introspective work and observation of children. Its images, like “conscience” and “inner judge,” are mental contents of great evocativeness.