0.2 Sigmund freud  (Page 16/37)

According to Freud, the superego is heir to the Oedipus complex (which we will discuss below), and arises as the child abandons their intense attachment to their parents. As a replacement for that attachment, the child begins to identify with their parents, and so incorporates the ideals and moral values of their parents and, later, teachers and other societal role models (Freud, 1933/1965). According to this view, the superego cannot fully develop if the child does not resolve the Oedipus complex, which, as we will discuss below, cannot happen for girls (Note: In addition to further discussion below, the issue of a more balanced female psychology will be discussed again in later chapters). The superego functions across all levels of the conscious and unconscious mind.

The superego takes two forms: an ego-ideal and a conscience . Freud considered the term ego-ideal as an alternative to the term superego, and it is not until we incorporate the development of conscience that we can recognize ego-ideal and conscience as different aspects of the superego. Indeed, it might be more appropriate, if one reads The Ego and the Id carefully (Freud, 1923/1960), to consider the ego-ideal and conscience as consecutive transformations of that portion of the ego that becomes known in general as the superego. The development of the superego is a complicated process, and seems to derive from the development of the ego itself. For an infant, the attachment to the parents and identification with them is not recognized as something different. The ego is weak, and can do little to restrain the id. As the child grows, the erotic nature of the love for the mother is slowly transformed into identification; the ego grows stronger, and begins to become associated with being a love-object itself. When the ego is capable of presenting itself to the id as an object worthy of love, narcissistic libido is generated and the ego becomes fully formed (Freud, 1923/1960). In other words, the child becomes an individual, aware that they are separate from their parents. There is still an intense attachment to the mother, however, which stems from the early days of breast feeding. The child must eventually lose this intense attachment to the mother, and begin to more fully identify with either the father (for boys) or the mother (for girls). As noted above, this final transformation from attachment to identification should occur during the Oedipus complex, and the ego-ideal arises within the context of the child knowing “I should act like my father” (for boys) or “I should act like my mother” (for girls).

Although the ego-ideal could represent the culmination of development, Freud believed that one more step came into play. Because of the difficulty the child encounters during the loss of the intense, erotic desires of the Oedipus complex, Freud felt there was more than simply a residue of those love-objects in the mind. He proposed an energetic reaction-formation against the earlier choices. Now, the child incorporates concepts of “I must not act like my father or mother.” Under the influences of authority, schooling, religion, etc., the superego develops an ever stronger conscience against inappropriate behavior. This conscience has a compulsive character and takes the form of a categorical imperative (Freud, 1923/1960). This conscience is our knowledge of right and wrong, and early on it is quite simplistic. There is right and there is wrong (as with Kohlberg’s earliest stages of moral development; Kohlberg, 1963).