Regime change and the superego

Abstract

This article explores the application of Robert Caper's ideas about an archaic superego and Ron Britton's formulations about the therapeutic emancipation of the ego from the tyranny of a destructive superego to thinking about Western interventions to bring about regime change in the Middle East. The author reviews the Kleinian and post Kleinian formulations about the superego. He concludes that problems with the superego are ubiquitous whether because of an archaic superego which can resurface in paranoid schizoid states of mind, or because of an enduring destructive superego. Britton shows how biblical texts reveal a preoccupation with and shed light on the inner struggle for freedom from the superego. The author discusses a similar preoccupation in a piece of popular contemporary literature The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and how, set in the context of the West's attempt to bring about regime-change in Iraq, this novel offers a commentary about the interaction between these internal and external struggles. The power of an archaic or destructive superego derives from a merger of the ego and superego whereby the ego is depleted as a result of projecting into the superego. The therapeutic task is to enable the client to achieve a ‘third position’ from which the ego can be strengthened by a disentangling of the projections, which may also need to involve the therapist's own disentangling from an archaic superego in the counter-transference. Some clinical material by Britton is reviewed to illustrate the disentangling of the projections. The author then discusses the application of these clinical insights to thinking about Western involvement in regime change in Iraq and Libya. He suggests that electorates who have suffered adversities such as ‘9/11’ or the recent financial crisis may be vulnerable to mobilising an omnipotent and idealised archaic superego in their leaders and followers who then need to sustain the idealisation by locating persecutory aspects in cruel dictators elsewhere. He concludes that when the minds of these latter day crusaders and their acolytes are in the grip of an archaic superego they are as enslaved to an internal tyrant as those they attempt to set free from an external one, and that realistic planning and judgement are consequently impaired.

Keywords:

• ego
• super-ego
• projective identification
• freedom
• regime change

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to William Halton for his encouragement and most helpful comments during the preparation of this article. This article was inspired by a Birkbeck Counselling Association monthly Forum discussion about the book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

 The article was presented as a talk for the Psychodynamic Practice annual conference held in association with the Institute of Group Analysis in July 2011. This article was also the basis of a paper given for the Ron Britton Today conference at UCL in December 2011.