422 MICHAEL E. STOCK 



apparent in adults, as part of their moral outlook, especially 

 in some cases of neuroses."^ 



Since religion and morality are so closely bound together, 

 some authors examine religious phenomena to detect the evi- 

 dence of superego characteristics. Freud himself originally 

 interpreted the role of God as an evidence of the father 

 identification reaction in the formation of the superego. Others 

 see in the combination of exhortation to an ideal and prohi- 

 bition of evil acts found in sacred writings the reflection of the 

 two fundamental aspects of the superego, ideal and taboo. "^ 



These authors, as well as many others, accept Freud's basic 

 configurations, and develop and apply them, with the purpose 

 of explaining all (or perhaps only some) ethical or moral 

 and religious conduct on the basis of deep and early instinc- 

 tual movements, and the reactions to them. Others how- 

 ever pick and choose among the elements of the superego, 

 accepting some and rejecting others as insufficiently proved, or 

 simply erroneous. Dr. Homey, for instance, does not accept 

 the superego as a special mental agency, but rather as a special 

 need — as a need to be perfect and infallible, and a need which 

 must be maintained by pretense wherever reality denies it. 

 Like Freud, she sees the genesis of this need in parental 

 authority, not, however, as the resolution of untenable sexual 

 orientations. When a child has been forced to conform too 

 rigidly to parental standards, he loses his own initiative, goals 

 and judgments. He takes the easy way out, abandons his 

 sense of self-reliance, and relies solely on the approval of others, 

 becoming finally the victim of alien norms of conduct. These 

 norms then do not constitute a valid moral standard for the 

 individual; they are not responses to true values rightly appre- 

 hended and appreciated. They are nothing but a sham of 

 morality, which has taken the place of true standards and eflec- 



*' Cf. Vincent P. Mahoney, M. D., " Scrupulosity from the Psychoanalytic View- 

 point," Bjilletin of the Guild of Catholic Psychiatrists, vol. V, #2. 



"^ Mortimer Ostow, " Religion and Psychiatry," American Handbook of Psychiatry, 

 pp. 1789 sqq. 



