Freud Superego

Freud Superego

"What are the main features and functions of the Superego according Freud?"

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What is the Superego? According to Anne Neimark " Sigmund called the third area of the mind the Superego. Like a judge in a court trial, the superego announced its verdicts or decrees." (Neimark A, 1976, page 96) The superego is part of a trio that controls our urges and desires. The id being the urge at it raw form, the ego filtering the urge, and the superego is the decider of whether or not the urge can be satisfied immediately or must be saved until later. The superego "formed from the rules of parents and authority figures, the superego was the inward voice that said you must, you must not, you are good, you are bad." (Neimark A, 1976, page 96)

"Since the superego goes back to the influence of parents, educators and so on, we learn still more of it's significance if we turn to those who are its sources." (Ricoeur P, 1970, p186) The superego is not created when we are born rather we are born with the superego and it develops over the course of our life as new rules and regulations are brought to light. "A child's superego is in fact constructed on the model not of its parents but of its parents' superego; the contents which fill it are the same and it becomes the vehicle of tradition and of all the time-resisting judgements of value which have propagated themselves in this manner from generation to generation." (Ricoeur P, 1970, p187) Therefore the superego is developed, maintained and updated continuously over the period of our life and is then passed on or inherited by our children.

The superego while being a conscious moralizer it also is largely unconscious "the superego is the seat of morality, part consci...

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...o two parts: conscience and ego ideal. Conscience tells what is right and wrong, and forces the ego to inhibit the id in pursuit of morally acceptable, not pleasurable or even realistic, goals. The ego ideal aims the individual's path of life toward the ideal, perfect goals instilled by society. In the pursuit, the mind attempts to make up for the loss of the perfect life experienced as a baby." (Stevenson D, 1966)

References

 David B. Stevenson, Freud's Division Of Mind 1966, Brown University, http://landow.stg.brown.edu/HTatBrown/freud/Division_of_Mind.html

 Elliott A, Freud 2000, 1998, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, Pages 240

 Ricoeur P, Freud And Philosophy, 1970, London, Yale University Press, Pages 186,187,212,299,300.

 Neimark A E, Sigmund Freud:The World Within,1976,New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 96.