"The Ego and the Id": How and why Freud transformed his model of the mind.

This paper argues that, despite its title, "The Ego and the Id" can be seen as the book of the superego, and although it is a metapsychological work, Freud's introduction of the new conceptual tools provided by the structural model was a response to the clinical problems he faced. The implications of Freud's introduction of the superego for the analytic relationship are discussed, with an attempt to deepen our understanding of what he had in mind by reading "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" alongside "The Ego and the Id". Finally, the paper draws on Bion to consider the implications of this remodelling of the analytic scene for listening and interpretation.

The Ego and the Id: Concepts and developments.

In this note I have limited myself to describing some convergent and divergent developments arising from the innovative concepts present in The Ego and the Id. It could be argued that a part of the psychoanalytic movement wished to emphasize the function of the Ego (Anna Freud, Hartmann, Rapaport), while another part (Melanie Klein and her followers) delved into the dynamics of the Superego and the Id in primitive and pathological states of mind. I will examine three themes presents in The Ego and the Id: the assertion that a part of the Ego is unconscious; the idea that the death drive becomes part of the dynamics of melancholia and its Superego; the concept of fusion and defusion of the life and death instinct. Freud's writing represents a forge of new ideas that have made psychoanalysis ever more creative and capable of understanding the complexity and mysteriousness of the human mind.

Passivity as a defence and disguised destructiveness.

In this paper, I set out to describe the different viewpoints, conceptualisations and defence mechanisms of the state of passivity; the categorisation by Freud; how the perspective of his thinking was altered by later insights and clinical observations; the close connection between the superego, passivity and masochism; the significance of the internal object world for Melanie Klein; countertransference as a means of access to masochism and destructiveness, with the aid of a short case illustration; and, finally, Betty Joseph's clinical experiences in work with her patients.

The Subject of the Dialectic: Some Consequences of Freud's Bisexuality Thesis.

On the basis of a previous reading (Olver, 2023) of Freud's work that reveals a bisexuality thesis, the author discusses several interrelated consequences of this thesis, including the nature of desire and primal unity, a restatement of shame, the semiotic model, and the emergence of society and the economy with reference to the ego and the superego. These consequences together encapsulate and describe the dialectic of the subject. The author shows how dialectic movement is arrested by various acts of nomination, most notably the nomination of heterosexuality in the forms of sexual reproduction and financial profit that become social and economic master values in modernity. Only by keeping the dialectic open can the subject do justice to its inherent and revolutionary bisexual nature, not in the sense of transgression but rather in pursuit of the nonnomination that is the permanent becoming of a dialectic self.

Self and Others: Empirical and Neuropsychoanalytic Considerations of Superego and Conscience.

Freud's mature theorizing about human morality entrenched the functioning of the superego in anxiety stemming from the fear of punishment, a view with which many later psychoanalysts took issue, producing a debate as to the distinction between superego and conscience. This debate would later be mirrored more broadly in academic psychology concerning distinctions between shame and guilt. This is an area where the clinical observations and theoretical discussions of psychoanalysis have subtly guided research in cognitive psychology and the cognitive and affective neurosciences. These areas, in turn, have both clarified and supported psychoanalytic theory and practice without negating the rich phenomenological and theoretical basis on which psychoanalysis rests.

Some Arguments About Free Association as a Technique.

Freud, early in psychoanalytic history, modified hypnotic technique and recommended, in its stead, free association. This paper takes a close look at the theoretical foundations of that technique in light of theoretical developments over the past hundred plus years. It is argued that free association is similar to an asymptote, which is never quite reached. Moreover, it is argued that the direction to free associate is contraindicated in many, if not most, psychological disturbances. Guided association or avoidance of free association is sometimes required. For a limited group of patients, whose major ego functions (abstraction, integration, and reality testing), ego strengths (impulse control, affect tolerance, and containing primary process), object relations (capacities for empathy, trust, and closeness), and superego (shame/guilt) are intact, the direction to use the couch and attempt to free associate may still be quite useful. For most people who present for treatment, however, this approach is likely not beneficial. The complex arguments about the decision-making process regarding free association are discussed.

The work of Benno Rosenberg.

Benno Rosenberg's work has been little translated into English. Yet, his work on masochism is a landmark in France. He set himself the goal of deploying all the richness and implications of the second Freudian drive theory and the introduction of the death drive. He therefore returns to "the Economic Problem of Masochism" to give all its value to the drive fusion that it achieves internally and which is therefore for it "guardian of life", even if it is can also be fatal. He draws consequences on the psychic construction of the ego, the superego and on that of temporality. He also describes a "work of melancholy" which is different from mourning. Thinking it necessary to push the consequences of the new theorizing further than Freud was able to do, he revisits "Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety" to articulate the triggering of anxiety by a libidinal demand and the threat to the unity of the ego who comes from the death drive due to conflict. Starting from the psychosomatic descriptions of Pierre Marty, whose options are specified, he also proposed a metapsychology of somatization during the overflow of the psyche by the destructiveness which will then threaten the body.

Thinking about encountering masochism/masochistic elements in analytic practice in the Kleinian tradition then and now.

Masochistic elements are puzzling entanglements for most of us in the beginning. Taking Melanie Klein's attempts to think about them thus show one way how to make sense of them. Starting from her struggles with masochistic symptoms in child analyses in the early 1920ies Melanie Klein tried to conceptualize those experiences in a way that could help to fact them in the analytic process. In this article the development is outlined, the move from thinking about them in libidinal terms to gradually grasping in greater depth their destructive quality. She speaks of an "evil principle" and then finds a conclusive solution in conceptualizing masochism as a representation of the death drive. In the next decades her followers would further work on the complexities of the countertransference issues and superego organizations in masochism in more detail as will be shown. Finally, a look in a piece of present analytic work will exemplify the clinical usefulness of the Kleinian conceptualization.

Reflections on masochism: An introduction.

Masochism is central to all pathologies and its relevance in clinical practise cannot be underestimated. The initial connection made by Freud was that masochism was a component or partial instinct, still operating within the pleasure principle. The relationship between masochism and the theory of drives marks a main theoretical difference in the different authors' explorations of this subject. The understanding of what is meant by 'masochism' gained complexity following Freud's postulation of a life and death drive (which is more or less contemporary with his 1924 paper on masochism) and the differences made by him between 'primary' and 'secondary' masochism. This introduction to the papers presented in this section will address some of these differences, as well as exploring the notions of primary erotogenic masochism, feminine and moral masochism. It will also look at the notion of binding /unbinding of the life/death drives, and the role of the superego. It will introduce the different papers by Novick and Novick, Bourdin, Frank and Persano on developmental perspectives, primary masochism, views on French analysts such as Benno Rosenberg and on Kleinian ideas on the subject as well as on the role of the body, pain and self harm.

The murder of the dead father: The Shoah and contemporary antisemitism.

It is suggested in this paper that in the Shoah one is confronted with the abolition of the Law of the Dead Father and the re-establishing of the tyranny of the narcissistic father. In the extermination of the Jews of Europe in the Shoah, the aim was the destruction of the rules of genealogy and filiation to both mother and father that establish the social and give rise to personhood and are at the core of the oedipal structure. The rule of absolute power - the destruction of any sense of maternal care and paternal rules - leads ultimately to the creation of the abject.Freud distinguished between two different types of obstacles to psychoanalytic treatment that are expressions of the death drive. The first is bound and is related to the superego; it is connected to the negative therapeutic reaction, masochism, and the unconscious sense of guilt. The other manifestation of the death drive is unbound and diffuse. If the first is understandable, the second, he suggests, escapes any understanding. The paper makes use of this distinction to examine Hannah Arendt's notion of the banality of evil.

The traumatic and the work of the après-coup in Freud's opus.

This text explores the evolution of the notion of trauma in Freud's work and of its decisive import for the organization of psychic functioning through a two-stage process called the après-coup. By following the three steps of Freud's theory of the drives, the author shows that the conception of the traumatic is gradually internalized to become a basic quality of all drives as a tendency to return to an earlier state, and ultimately an organic, inanimate state. An open question remains in Freud about this tendency's relation to Eros, and therefore to the links between Eros and the traumatic state. This question has remained latent within the psychoanalytic community. The author proposes to conceive of Eros as an infinitely extensible tendency that needs containing in order for it to contribute to evolving inscriptions. Thus is outlined one traumatic state as a return to the inorganic and another traumatic state as an infinite extensibility, both being transformed by the superego and its imperatives in order to generate all life forms.

Authority And Freedom.

Authority and freedom are connected, and both have external and internal forms. External authority, political or institutional, can impinge on internal freedom in ways that matter to psychoanalysts. Internal freedom requires an internal authority that can be trusted. The superego is an external authority masquerading as an internal one. The ego, with its compliance toward the id, the superego, and external reality, operates like a false self in the psyche. In Lacanian terms, it is of necessity alienated from itself. By contrast, the true self as described by Winnicott, and the "subject" as theorized especially in French psychoanalysis, represent an authentic conscience that allows us to become the authors of our at one's authority. This implies two sorts of freedom: freedom from narcissistic self-investment, and the forward-looking freedom of psychic growth. The latter occurs only in a context of relatedness to others, and it entails caring for the interests of others-if necessary at one's own expense. This vision of human beings as having an innate impetus toward psychic growth makes psychoanalysis a fundamentally optimistic endeavor. Clinical and nonclinical examples show, however, that it demands a perpetual readiness to let go of apparent certainties.

Psychosis and psychotic functioning in adolescence.

This paper presents an overview of the main issues that underlie the outbreak of a psychosis in adolescence. The author addresses significant questions that arise in connection with the use of the terms psychosis, psychotic functioning, and adolescent breakdown, examining different theoretical and clinical approaches to psychosis in adolescence. One of the main areas to be explored is the use of the specific diagnosis of psychosis in adolescence when we witness fluctuating mental states, variability, and changeable behaviour.A central point in the development of a psychotic process is the relationship to external reality. This break with reality was characterized by M. and M.E. Laufer as specifically lived out in relation to the reality of the adolescent's changing body. This paper will look at these authors' understanding of psychotic episodes, psychotic functioning, and psychosis, as well as other theoretical perspectives. The paper will address the economic aspects linked to drive increase, the complex interplay of early anxieties, unconscious phantasies and internal object relations, along with the role of identity, the superego and trauma. The paper also discusses different modalities of treatment and stresses the benefit of psychoanalytic treatment for disturbed adolescents.

Conceptions of the superego in sociological and socio-psychological analyses.

This paper provides a historical overview of the reception of the superego concept in sociology and psychoanalytic social psychology. Central to the discussion are the ways in which classical and contemporary approaches (e.g. Parsons, Elias, Bourdieu) have responded to Freud's theories concerning the genesis of the superego and its changes in the course of psychic development, to his suppositions concerning anthropology and psychopathology, and to later psychoanalytic extensions of the concept (e.g. Klein, Erikson and Loewald). With reference to Freud's works of cultural critique, special emphasis is given to conceptions of the superego in studies on authoritarianism, adaptation and morality, notably by the Frankfurt School (Fromm, Horkheimer, Adorno). The authors also discuss the historical changes undergone by the superego concept and examine by way of examples the benefits of concept for achieving a clearer understanding of recent societal trends associated with contemporary phenomena such as digitization and optimization.

Developments on the concept of the super-ego in Bion's work.

In Bion's work, we find both continuity with and a breakthrough from the ideas developed by Freud and Melanie Klein on the concept of superego. After relying on Klein's views, Bion presented two fresh perspectives on this topic. In the first, in his theory of thinking we find a shift from an instinctive perspective to a psychological approach to morality. In the second we find conjectures (both imaginative and rational) about a primitive conscience, a form of morality prior to the mental functioning described as the superego by Freud and even the archaic superego described by Klein. This primordial psychic condition refers to a hazy dimension in which phylogenesis merges with fetal experiences. As described by Bion, the manifestations of this primitive conscience emerge as states of intense terror and guilt underneath a symbolic mind. They inhibit the development of the mind, are felt as harsh and authoritarian, always present as prohibitive, can potentially drive the individual to suicide, and are frequently found in the psychoanalytic practice.

The perverse and the psychotic superego.

In this contribution I will sustain that, given its origin, meaning and function, the superego is readily susceptible to the pathological distortions observed in clinical psychoanalytic work. After all, while we as psychoanalysts are unacquainted with the "normal" superego, we are accustomed to seeing patients with either an abnormal sense of guilt or a seeming absence of guilt. However, a distinction must first be drawn between the primitive superego and its pathological counterpart. Whereas some clinical situations involve a superego whose primitive aspects feature prominently in the foreground, in other cases one encounters psychopathological structures that do not stem from the primitive superego, even if they share the latter's seductive, dominant or intimidatory aspects.

Confusion of tongues: Chinese/English/German psychoanalytic dialogues.

Translation of psychoanalytic texts is notoriously complex, amplified by differences between Western languages/cultures and China. Freud labelled translation "traitorous". A current challenge is the trend among some professional translators to diminish or eliminate hierarchies of accurate and inaccurate translations. We argue for accurate translation to transmit psychoanalytic concepts in Mandarin Chinese. The English Standard Edition involved unfortunate choices to "Latinize" key Freudian terms; for example, Es, Ich and Überich were rendered as Id, Ego and Supergo, instead of more experience-near common language equivalents in English, "it, I and over I." Similarly, some recent translations of German and English psychoanalytic terms into Mandarin Chinese have also tended to perpetuate intellectualized distancing from Freud's original vivid words. Here, we focus on seven critical terms for core psychoanalytic concepts: Ich/I, Es/it, Überich/superego, Transference (Übertragung), Countertransference (Gegenübertragung), Psyche/Soul (Psyche/Seele), psychoanalysis and (surprisingly) schizophrenia. We suggest that the currently popular oral-aural translations from English into Mandarin perpetuate distancing and lead to mis-translations that obscure our foundational concepts. We propose alternative Mandarin translations for some terms and discuss the broader cultural challenges involved in transmitting the heart (and soul) of psychoanalysis with Chinese colleagues.

A river with several different tributary streams: Reflections on the repetition compulsion.

This paper examines the repetition compulsion as a composite structure and explores the elements that are involved in it. After examining the difference between playful repetition, which promotes psychic development, and the repetition compulsion, which obstructs psychic change, the author discusses Freud's models of the repetition compulsion (as the return of the repressed vs an expression of the death drive). Further elements that contribute to the repetition compulsion include the role of a primitive, punitive superego, the persistence of raw, unsymbolized elements, obsessional doubt, the retreat into timeless states of mind as well as a re-entry mechanism in certain psychotic patients. Finally, the failure of reparative processes seems to be a central mechanism in sustaining the repetition compulsion. Brief clinical vignettes illustrate the author's arguments.

The working of values in ethics and religion.

This paper attempts to understand further the working of values in ethics and religion. Its premise is that the psyche is organized by its internal objects, and that understanding the effective working of values therefore requires understanding the relevant internal objects. It begins with a brief outline of the history of internal objects in the thought of Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott and Loewald, and suggests that they are best thought of as "phenomenological" in nature, meaning that, whether conscious or unconscious, they appear in the mind without an enduring substrate. Using the thought of Loewald and of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in particular, it suggests that the functioning of "allegory" offers an important avenue to understanding how certain internal objects act to organize the psyche hierarchically on a basis of values including ethical ones. "Religious objects" may then be understood as a subclass of "allegorical objects", acting analogously to Levinas's "face of the other" and experienced as giving access to "transcendent" (commanding) values. Such values are not adequately described by traditional accounts of a superego and require a deepening of the psychoanalytic dialogue with philosophy.

Beyond Nature and Culture: Fromm's Existentialism.

Though commonly seen as a member of the so-called "culturistic" school of psychoanalysis that rejected Freudian drive theory and embraced an "oversocialized" conception of human nature, Fromm's qualified essentialism and neo-Marxist existentialism significantly transcend both biological and social determinism (although he succumbs to the latter in regard to his theory of the Oedipus complex). His existential Freudo-Marxism contributes to the integration of psychoanalysis and social science. In place of the authoritarian superego and the pseudo-objective stance of the classical Freudians, Fromm offers conscientious, egalitarian, personalistic, and humane values.