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THE FATE OF THE SUPEREGO IN OUR TIME |
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The
collapse of parental authority has led to the collapse of the old
paternal superego. The superego as a psychical agency persists, but
without the modifying influence of parental control, the child or the
adolescent can sometimes feel overwhelmed by feelings and impulses that
threaten to destroy the self. In order to control such feelings, in the
absence of external support, the ego is thrown back onto more primitive
control mechanisms in which more archaic and aggressive elements
predominate.
In the past one could speak of the parental internalisations which occurred during adolescence as acting as a modifying influence on the more primitive and ruthless superego of early childhood. The provision of external support and control removed the need for the harsh counter-measures adopted by the ego when it was in a relatively helpless state. Contact with parents and other adults whose (normal) discipline and authority was looked up to and identified with had the effect of gradually mitigating strong and irrational unconscious and conscious guilt feelings. The child or adolescent's sense of right and wrong was brought more into line with reality and the superego functioned as a conscience. The warfare between the superego and the Id became modified and reduced and the person was left relatively free to pursue a productive life. Of course there were always bad identifications, where parental pathology was internalised. In general, the more adult figures a child had to identify with the better for his mental health. So, in this respect, the break-up of the extended family, and more recently the nuclear family has been hugely detrimental. The imbalance created by the shift in values from self-restraint in favour of self-indulgence has led to the abandoning of the old superego and the uncovering of its infantile prototype. The loss of external support brought about by the collapse of parental authority has left children exposed and threatened from within. The old inhibiting superego has been replaced by a tyrannical new one. Increasing external freedom increases internal guilt and self-punishment, making it more difficult than ever for instinctual desires to find acceptable outlets. Let us briefly look more closely at what is meant by the 'archaic superego' which is the forerunner of the mature adult superego. Firstly, it must not be understood as a moral agency. It does oppose instinct but in an entirely irrational way. It operates on the principle of the talion, using aggression to oppose aggression. The ruthlessness of the infant in procuring its needs is matched by the ruthlessness of the superego response. Freud saw the severity in his work on melancholia and obsessional neurosis. How is it that the superego develops such extraordinary harshness and severity towards the ego? If we turn to melancholia first, we find that the excessively strong superego which has obtained a hold upon consciousness rages against the ego with merciless violence, as if it had taken possession of the whole of the sadism available in the person concerned. Following our view of sadism we should say that the destructive component had entrenched itself in the superego and turned against the ego. What is now holding sway in the superego is a pure culture of the death instinct.In obsessional neurosis the instinct of destruction has been set free and it seeks to destroy the object. The superego behaves as if the ego were responsible for this by the seriousness with which it chastises these destructive intentions. (Freud 1923, p.53). Melanie Klein in her work with young children greatly increased our understanding of the early formation of the superego. She points out that the early superego is 'immeasurably harsher and more cruel than that of the older child or adult and that it literally crushed down the feeble Ego of the small child. In the small child we come across a superego of the most incredible and phantastic proportions (Klein, 1933 pp. 248, 249) The younger the child the more severe is the superego. 'We get to look upon the child's fear of being devoured, or cut-up, or torn to pieces, or its terror of being surrounded and pursued by menacing figures'. (ibid p249) Klein's analyses of children pointed-up the importance of aggression in early development. When aggression is at its height they never tire of, 'tearing and cutting-up, breaking and wetting and burning all sorts of things like paper, matches, boxes, small toys, all of which represent (unconsciously) parents, brothers, sisters and bodies and breasts, and this rage for destruction alternates with attacks of anxiety and guilt'. (ibid p. 255) These frustrated and destructive rages within the child cause him great anxiety, 'for he perceives his anxiety arising from his aggressive instincts as fear of an external object [person], both because he had made that object their outward goal, and because he has projected them onto it, so that they seem to be initiated against himself from that quarter'. (ibid p. 250) He cannot own up to his rage; instead he will create terrifying images of his parents who are now felt to rage against him. This is a desperate attempt at control by turning sadism against the self. In the archaic superego, we clearly do not have a conscience. Instead we have a brutal instrument of self-punishment which is as impulsive and dangerous as the drives of the Id that it is trying to control. This is part of our early development. It remains mostly unconscious and we only become aware of it during nightmares, certain drug states, during horror movies and certain paranoid states as well as depressive ones. But with the loss of the more mature and benign superego and suitable identification figures, children are increasingly exposed to this frightening internal world. It is not just the loss of the old paternal superego which is at issue, but the simultaneous systematic exploitation of Id-cravings (through the sexualisation of all entertainment) targeted at younger and younger age-groups in the face of increasingly helpless and demoralised parents who use a mixture of threats and bribery to get by from day to day. Here is an escalation on two fronts resulting in signs of psychological distress seen increasingly in the pre-teen age group. Freud, S. (1923) The
Ego and the Id. S.E. 19: 1-66. For Comments or Suggestions please email me at: |