CONSCIENCE AND SUPEREGO 411 



or less divorced from reality; and that this mysterious censor- 

 ship's function was often effected with a psychological force 

 considerably greater than that which usually accompanies 

 reality-oriented activities. He formulated therefore the notion 

 of the superego. The superego is a largely acquired but uncon- 

 scious agency of censorship, formed within the ego, which 

 forbids and commands and punishes disobedience by generating 

 painful feelings of guilt.^ 



(2) Arguments for the existence of the superego. 



What are the evidences for such a mental institution? First 

 of all, there is the argument from the psychology of child 

 development. Infants even at an early age are subject to a 

 certain amount of ' training,' a matter of parental prohibitions 

 or demands, reinforced with smiles and rewards or with frowns 

 and punishments. In the beginning, the child must be con- 

 stantly prompted to do what he has been told; the enforcing 

 agency is part of the reality external to himself. Eventually, 

 however, he will begin to do what he has been told even when 

 his parents are absent. Evidently he has made their exhor- 

 tations and prohibitions part of his own mental equipment. 

 He has absorbed, not only what they have told him should be 

 done or not done, but has also absorbed, or developed, the 

 impulse to follow these directions. This, in a superficial way, 

 is a description of the forming of the superego.* 



Another argument for the superego is drawn from a situation 

 common in psychoanalysis, the occurrence of ' resistance.' 

 When analyzing a patient, Freud would endeavor to have him 

 relate all the thoughts and images that came to his mind by 

 the process of relaxed, free association. In this way he hoped 

 to uncover the more or less hidden mental complexes which 

 lay at the source of the patient's troubles. But he frequently 



^ Freud, loc. cit. 



*Cf. Freud, "On Narcissism: An Introduction," Coll. Papers, vol. 4, pp. 50-53; 

 Joseph Nuttin, Psychoanalysis and Personality, pp. 19-20. (Sheed and Ward, New 

 York, 1953). 



