Key Arguments

• Freud asks "how is that the Superego manifests itself essentially as guilt (better: as criticism, feeling guilty is the perception in the Ego that corresponds to this criticism) and at the same time displays such an extraordinary hardness and severity towards the Ego," focusing on its harshness.
• Turning to melancholia, he notes that "we find that the overpowering Superego has seized the consciousness, raging against the Ego with relentless violence as if it had taken hold of all the sadism 125 available in the individual," explicitly linking superego cruelty with sadistic energy.
• He interprets this as a deposition of destructiveness in the superego: "In our view of sadism, we would say the destructive component deposited itself in the Superego and turned against the Ego. What now prevails in the Superego is like a pure culture of the death instinct, and, indeed, it often manages to drive the Ego to death," which shows the internalization of the death drive as conscience.
• By contrast, in "certain forms" of obsessional neurosis, "the person with obsessional neurosis actually never takes the step of suicide, like he is immune to suicide, far better protected than the hysteric. We understand that it is the conservation of the object that guarantees the safety of the Ego," indicating that preserved attachment to the object protects against self-destruction.
• He explains that in obsessional neurosis "it is through a regression 127 to pregenital organization 128 that it becomes possible for love impulses to transform into aggression impulses against the object. Again, the destruction instinct has become free and wants to destroy the object, or at least it appears as if such an intention existed," so regression liberates destructiveness.
• However, "The Ego has not taken up these tendencies, it balks at them with reaction formations and precautions, they remain in the Id. But the Superego behaves as if the Ego were responsible for them and shows us at the same time through the earnestness with which it pursues these destruction intentions that it is not a semblance elicited through regression, rather the true substitution of love for hate," illustrating how the superego punishes the ego for id-based aggressive wishes.
• In both melancholia and obsessional neurosis, the ego is "Helpless on both sides" and "defends itself in vain against the impositions of the murderous Id and the reproaches of punitive conscience alike," which results in "an endless self-agony" and "a systematic torture of the object," showing how internal and external aggression co-exist.
• Freud generalizes that "The dangerous death-drives are treated in different ways in the individual, partly rendered harmless by combining with erotic components, partly diverted outward as aggression, for the most part, they certainly continue their internal work unhindered," but in melancholia "the Superego can become a kind of collection point for the death instincts."
• From the standpoint of morality, he formulates: "The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be," emphasizing that moral excess coincides with cruelty.
• He observes that "man, the more he constrains his outward aggression, the more harsh—aggressive—he becomes in his Ego Ideal," so "The more a person masters his aggression, the more the inclination to aggression of his Ideal towards his Ego increases. It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego," explaining harsh conscience as turned-in aggression.
• Freud proposes a metapsychological mechanism: "The Superego is caused by an identification with the father role model. Every such identification has the character of a desexualization or even sublimation. 129 It now appears that in such a realization an instinctual separation takes place also. The erotic component no longer has, after sublimation, the power to bind all the added destruction, and this becomes free as an inclination to aggression and destruction. From this separation, the Ideal would even obtain the hard, cruel trait of the imperious 'Ought.'" Identification plus desexualization thus frees destructive drives to be internalized as a punitive moral authority.
• He contrasts this with obsessional neurosis, where "The decomposition of the love into aggression has not come about through an achievement of the Ego, rather is the result of a regression, performed in the Id. But this process has spread from the Id to the Superego, which now exacerbates its severity against the innocent Ego," so in both cases the ego is punished by superego aggression for drives it has tried either to sublimate or keep repressed.

Source Quotes

Now, with respect to the meaning we have attributed to the pre-conscious verbal residues in the Ego, the question of whether the Superego, if it is ucs, consists or not of such word presentations, or of what else it consists; the humble answer will be that the Superego cannot possibly deny its origin from what is heard, it is indeed a part of the Ego and remains more accessible by these word presentations (concepts, abstractions) to the consciousness, but the cathectic energy does not reach the content of the Superego from the perception of sound, teaching, reading, but is fed by the sources in the Id. The question we had set aside to answer goes: how is that the Superego manifests itself essentially as guilt (better: as criticism, feeling guilty is the perception in the Ego that corresponds to this criticism) and at the same time displays such an extraordinary hardness and severity towards the Ego. Let us first turn to melancholia, where we find that the overpowering Superego has seized the consciousness, raging against the Ego with relentless violence as if it had taken hold of all the sadism 125 available in the individual.

The question we had set aside to answer goes: how is that the Superego manifests itself essentially as guilt (better: as criticism, feeling guilty is the perception in the Ego that corresponds to this criticism) and at the same time displays such an extraordinary hardness and severity towards the Ego. Let us first turn to melancholia, where we find that the overpowering Superego has seized the consciousness, raging against the Ego with relentless violence as if it had taken hold of all the sadism 125 available in the individual. In our view of sadism, we would say the destructive component deposited itself in the Superego and turned against the Ego.

Let us first turn to melancholia, where we find that the overpowering Superego has seized the consciousness, raging against the Ego with relentless violence as if it had taken hold of all the sadism 125 available in the individual. In our view of sadism, we would say the destructive component deposited itself in the Superego and turned against the Ego. What now prevails in the Superego is like a pure culture of the death instinct, and, indeed, it often manages to drive the Ego to death, if the Ego does not defend itself beforehand by the switch-around in the mania 126 of its tyrant. The reproaches of conscience in certain forms of obsessional neurosis are similarly embarrassing and torturous, but the situation is less transparent here.

We understand that it is the conservation of the object that guarantees the safety of the Ego. In obsessional neurosis, it is through a regression 127 to pregenital organization 128 that it becomes possible for love impulses to transform into aggression impulses against the object. Again, the destruction instinct has become free and wants to destroy the object, or at least it appears as if such an intention existed. The Ego has not taken up these tendencies, it balks at them with reaction formations and precautions, they remain in the Id.

Again, the destruction instinct has become free and wants to destroy the object, or at least it appears as if such an intention existed. The Ego has not taken up these tendencies, it balks at them with reaction formations and precautions, they remain in the Id. But the Superego behaves as if the Ego were responsible for them and shows us at the same time through the earnestness with which it pursues these destruction intentions that it is not a semblance elicited through regression, rather the true substitution of love for hate. Helpless on both sides, the Ego defends itself in vain against the impositions of the murderous Id and the reproaches of punitive conscience alike.

But the Superego behaves as if the Ego were responsible for them and shows us at the same time through the earnestness with which it pursues these destruction intentions that it is not a semblance elicited through regression, rather the true substitution of love for hate. Helpless on both sides, the Ego defends itself in vain against the impositions of the murderous Id and the reproaches of punitive conscience alike. It succeeds at just curbing the coarsest actions of both; the result is first an endless self-agony and, in further developments, a systematic torture of the object, wherever it can be reached.

It succeeds at just curbing the coarsest actions of both; the result is first an endless self-agony and, in further developments, a systematic torture of the object, wherever it can be reached. The dangerous death-drives are treated in different ways in the individual, partly rendered harmless by combining with erotic components, partly diverted outward as aggression, for the most part, they certainly continue their internal work unhindered. How is that, in melancholia, the Superego can become a kind of collection point for the death instincts?

How is that, in melancholia, the Superego can become a kind of collection point for the death instincts? From the point of view of instinct constraint, of morality, we can say: The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be. It is curious that man, the more he constrains his outward aggression, the more harsh—aggressive—he becomes in his Ego Ideal.

The customary view seems the reverse, seeing in the stipulation of the Ego Ideal the motive for the suppression of aggression. The fact remains, however, as we have expressed: The more a person masters his aggression, the more the inclination to aggression of his Ideal towards his Ego increases. It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego. Even common, normal morality has a hard-restricting, cruelly forbidding character.

The Superego is caused by an identification with the father role model. Every such identification has the character of a desexualization or even sublimation. 129 It now appears that in such a realization an instinctual separation takes place also. The erotic component no longer has, after sublimation, the power to bind all the added destruction, and this becomes free as an inclination to aggression and destruction. From this separation, the Ideal would even obtain the hard, cruel trait of the imperious “Ought.” Let’s linger again on obsessional neurosis.

The decomposition of the love into aggression has not come about through an achievement of the Ego, rather is the result of a regression, performed in the Id. But this process has spread from the Id to the Superego, which now exacerbates its severity against the innocent Ego. In both cases, the Ego however, as it mastered the libido through identification, would suffer for that the punishment of the Superego through the aggression added to the libido.

Key Concepts

• how is that the Superego manifests itself essentially as guilt (better: as criticism, feeling guilty is the perception in the Ego that corresponds to this criticism) and at the same time displays such an extraordinary hardness and severity towards the Ego.
• Let us first turn to melancholia, where we find that the overpowering Superego has seized the consciousness, raging against the Ego with relentless violence as if it had taken hold of all the sadism 125 available in the individual.
• the destructive component deposited itself in the Superego and turned against the Ego. What now prevails in the Superego is like a pure culture of the death instinct, and, indeed, it often manages to drive the Ego to death
• it is through a regression 127 to pregenital organization 128 that it becomes possible for love impulses to transform into aggression impulses against the object. Again, the destruction instinct has become free and wants to destroy the object
• The Ego has not taken up these tendencies, it balks at them with reaction formations and precautions, they remain in the Id. But the Superego behaves as if the Ego were responsible for them
• Helpless on both sides, the Ego defends itself in vain against the impositions of the murderous Id and the reproaches of punitive conscience alike.
• The dangerous death-drives are treated in different ways in the individual, partly rendered harmless by combining with erotic components, partly diverted outward as aggression, for the most part, they certainly continue their internal work unhindered.
• The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be.
• The more a person masters his aggression, the more the inclination to aggression of his Ideal towards his Ego increases. It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego.
• Every such identification has the character of a desexualization or even sublimation. 129 It now appears that in such a realization an instinctual separation takes place also. The erotic component no longer has, after sublimation, the power to bind all the added destruction, and this becomes free as an inclination to aggression and destruction. From this separation, the Ideal would even obtain the hard, cruel trait of the imperious “Ought.”
• But this process has spread from the Id to the Superego, which now exacerbates its severity against the innocent Ego.

Context

Central part of Chapter V, where Freud uses melancholia and obsessional neurosis to show how the superego can become a repository of the death drive and to explain the origin of a hyper-moral, cruel conscience in terms of identification, desexualization, and instinctual separation.