Freud - Complete Works (660 page)

   The description we have given
applies to the most extreme instances of this state of affairs, but
in a lesser measure this factor has to be reckoned with in very
many cases, perhaps in all comparatively severe cases of neurosis.
In fact it may be precisely this element in the situation, the
attitude of the ego ideal, that determines the severity of a
neurotic illness. We shall not hesitate, therefore, to discuss
rather more fully the way in which the sense of guilt expresses
itself under different conditions.

  
¹
The battle with the obstacle of an
unconscious sense of guilt is not made easy for the analyst.
Nothing can be done against it directly, and nothing indirectly but
the slow procedure of unmasking its unconscious repressed roots,
and of thus gradually changing it into a
conscious
sense of
guilt. One has a special opportunity for influencing it when this
Ucs
. sense of guilt is a ‘borrowed’ one - when
it is the product of an identification with some other person who
was once the object of an erotic cathexis. A sense of guilt that
has been adopted in this way is often the sole remaining trace of
the abandoned love-relation and not at all easy to recognize as
such. (The likeness between this process and what happens in
melancholia is unmistakable.) If one can unmask this former
object-cathexis behind the
Ucs
. sense of guilt, the
therapeutic success is often brilliant, but otherwise the outcome
of one’s efforts is by no means certain. It depends
principally on the intensity of the sense of guilt; there is often
no counteracting force of a similar order of strength which the
treatment can oppose to it. Perhaps it may depend, too, on whether
the personality of the analyst allows of the patient’s
putting him in the place of his ego ideal, and this involves a
temptation for the analyst to play the part of prophet, saviour and
redeemer to the patient. Since the rules of analysis are
diametrically opposed to the physician’s making use of his
personality in any such manner, it must be honestly confessed that
here we have another limitation to the effectiveness of analysis;
after all, analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions
impossible, but to give the patient’s ego
freedom
to
decide one way or the other.

The Ego And The Id

3985

   An interpretation of the normal,
conscious sense of guilt (conscience) presents no difficulties; it
is based on the tension between the ego and the ego ideal and is
the expression of a condemnation of the ego by its critical agency.
The feelings of inferiority so well known in neurotics are
presumably not far removed from it. In two very familiar maladies
the sense of guilt is over-strongly conscious; in them the ego
ideal displays particular severity and often rages against the ego
in a cruel fashion. The attitude of the ego ideal in these two
conditions, obsessional neurosis and melancholia, presents,
alongside of this similarity, differences that are no less
significant.

   In certain forms of obsessional
neurosis the sense of guilt is over-noisy but cannot justify itself
to the ego. Consequently the patient’s ego rebels against the
imputation of guilt and seeks the physician’s support in
repudiating it. It would be folly to acquiesce in this, for to do
so would have no effect. Analysis eventually shows that the
super-ego is being influenced by processes that have remained
unknown to the ego. It is possible to discover the repressed
impulses which are really at the bottom of the sense of guilt. Thus
in this case the super-ego knew more than the ego about the
unconscious id.

   In melancholia the impression
that the super-ego has obtained a hold upon consciousness is even
stronger. But here the ego ventures no objection; it admits its
guilt and submits to the punishment. We understand the difference.
In obsessional neurosis what were in question were objectionable
impulses which remained outside the ego, while in melancholic the
object to which the super-ego’s wrath applies has been taken
into the ego through identification.

   It is certainly not clear why the
sense of guilt reaches such an extraordinary strength in these two
neurotic disorders; but the main problem presented in this state of
affairs lies in another direction. We shall postpone discussion of
it until we have dealt with the other cases in which the sense of
guilt remains unconscious.

   It is essentially in hysteria and
in states of a hysterical type that this is found. Here the
mechanism by which the sense of guilt remains unconscious is easy
to discover. The hysterical ego fends off a distressing perception
with which the criticisms of its super-ego threaten it, in the same
way in which it is in the habit of fending off an unendurable
object-cathexis - by an act of repression. It is the ego,
therefore, that is responsible for the sense of guilt remaining
unconscious. We know that as a rule the ego carries out repressions
in the service and at the behest of its super-ego; but this is a
case in which it has turned the same weapon against its harsh
taskmaster. In obsessional neurosis, as we know, the phenomena of
reaction-formation predominate; but here the ego succeeds only in
keeping at a distance the material to which the sense of guilt
refers.

The Ego And The Id

3986

   One may go further and venture
the hypothesis that a great part of the sense of guilt must
normally remain unconscious, because the origin of conscience is
intimately connected with the Oedipus complex, which belongs to the
unconscious. If anyone were inclined to put forward the paradoxical
proposition that the normal man is not only far more immoral than
he believes but also far more moral than he knows, psycho-analysis,
on whose findings the first half of the assertion rests, would have
no objection to raise against the second half.¹

   It was a surprise to find that an
increase in this
Ucs
. sense of guilt can turn people into
criminals. But it is undoubtedly a fact. In many criminals,
especially youthful ones, it is possible to detect a very powerful
sense of guilt which existed before the crime, and is therefore not
its result but its motive. It is as if it was a relief to be able
to fasten this unconscious sense of guilt on to something real and
immediate.

   In all these situations the
super-ego displays its independence of the conscious ego and its
intimate relations with the unconscious id. Having regard, now, to
the importance we have ascribed to preconscious verbal residues in
the ego, the question arises whether it can be the case that the
super-ego, in so far as it is
Ucs
., consists in such
word-presentations and, if it does not, what else it consists in.
Our tentative answer will be that it is as impossible for the
super-ego as for the ego to disclaim its origin from things heard;
for it is a part of the ego and remains accessible to consciousness
by way of these word-presentations (concepts, abstractions). But
the
cathectic energy
does not reach these contents of the
super-ego from auditory perception (instruction or reading) but
from sources in the id.

  
¹
This proposition is only apparently a
paradox; it simply states that human nature has a far greater
extent, both for good and for evil, than it thinks it has - i. e.
than its ego is aware of through conscious perception.

The Ego And The Id

3987

   The question which we put off
answering runs as follows: How is it that the super-ego manifests
itself essentially as a sense of guilt (or rather, as criticism -
for the sense of guilt is the perception in the ego answering to
this criticism) and moreover develops such extraordinary harshness
and severity towards the ego? If we turn to melancholia first, we
find that the excessively strong super-ego 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 super-ego and turned against the ego. What is now holding sway
in the super-ego is, as it were, a pure culture of the death
instinct, and in fact it often enough succeeds in driving the ego
into death, if the latter does not fend off its tyrant in time by
the change round into mania.

   The reproaches of conscience in
certain forms of obsessional neurosis are as distressing and
tormenting, but here the situation is less perspicuous. It is
noteworthy that the obsessional neurotic, in contrast to the
melancholic, never in fact takes the step of self-destruction; it
is as though he were immune against the danger of suicide, and he
is far better protected from it than the hysteric. We can see that
what guarantees the safety of the ego is the fact that the object
has been retained. In obsessional neurosis it has become possible,
through a regression to the pregenital organization, for the
love-impulses to transform themselves into impulses of aggression
against the object. Here again the instinct of destruction has been
set free and it seeks to destroy the object, or at least it appears
to have that intention. These purposes have not been adopted by the
ego and it struggles against them with reaction-formations and
precautionary measures; they remain in the id. The super-ego,
however, behaves as if the ego were responsible for them and shows
at the same time by the seriousness with which it chastises these
destructive intentions that they are no mere semblance evoked by
regression but an actual substitution of hate for love. Helpless in
both directions, the ego defends itself vainly, alike against the
instigations of the murderous id and against the reproaches of the
punishing conscience. It succeeds in holding in check at least the
most brutal actions of both sides; the first outcome is
interminable self-torment, and eventually there follows a
systematic torturing of the object, in so far as it is within
reach.

The Ego And The Id

3988

   The dangerous death instincts are
dealt with in the individual in various ways: in part they are
rendered harmless by being fused with erotic components, in part
they are diverted towards the external world in the form of
aggression, while to a large extent they undoubtedly continue their
internal work unhindered. How is it then that in melancholia the
super-ego can become a kind of gathering-place for the death
instincts?

   From the point of view of
instinctual control, of morality, it may be said of the id that it
is totally non-moral, of the ego that it strives to be moral, and
of the super-ego that it can be super-moral and then become as
cruel as only the id can be. It is remarkable that the more a man
checks his aggressiveness towards the exterior the more severe -
that is aggressive - he becomes in his ego ideal. The ordinary view
sees the situation the other way round: the standard set up by the
ego ideal seems to be the motive for the suppression of
aggressiveness. The fact remains, however, as we have stated it:
the more a man controls his aggressiveness, the more intense
becomes his ideal’s inclination to aggressiveness against his
ego. It is like a displacement, a turning round upon his own ego.
But even ordinary normal morality has a harshly restraining,
cruelly prohibiting quality. It is from this, indeed, that the
conception arises of a higher being who deals out punishment
inexorably.

   I cannot go further in my
consideration of these questions without introducing a fresh
hypothesis. The super-ego arises, as we know, from an
identification with the father taken as a model. Every such
identification is in the nature of a desexualization or even of a
sublimation. It now seems as though when a transformation of this
kind takes place, an instinctual defusion occurs at the same time.
After sublimation the erotic component no longer has the power to
bind the whole of the destructiveness that was combined with it,
and this is released in the form of an inclination to aggression
and destruction. This defusion would be the source of the general
character of harshness and cruelty exhibited by the ideal - its
dictatorial ‘Thou shalt’.

The Ego And The Id

3989

   Let us again consider obsessional
neurosis for a moment. The state of affairs is different here. The
defusion of love into aggressiveness has not been effected by the
work of the ego, but is the result of a regression which has come
about in the id. But this process has extended beyond the id to the
super-ego, which now increases its severity towards the innocent
ego. It would seem, however, that in this case, no less than in
that of melancholia, the ego, having gained control over the libido
by means of identification, is punished for doing so by the
super-ego through the instrumentality of the aggressiveness which
was mixed with the libido.

   Our ideas about the ego are
beginning to clear, and its various relationships are gaining
distinctness. We now see the ego in its strength and in its
weaknesses. It is entrusted with important functions. By virtue of
its relation to the perceptual system it gives mental processes an
order in time and submits them to ‘reality-testing’. By
interposing the processes of thinking, it secures a postponement of
motor discharges and controls the access to motility. This last
power is, to be sure, a question more of form than of fact; in the
matter of action the ego’s position is like that of a
constitutional monarch, without whose sanction no law can be passed
but who hesitates long before imposing his veto on any measure put
forward by Parliament. All the experiences of life that originate
from without enrich the ego; the id, however, is its second
external world, which it strives to bring into subjection to
itself. It withdraws libido from the id and transforms the
object-cathexes of the id into ego-structures. With the aid of the
super-ego, in a manner that is still obscure to us, it draws upon
the experiences of past ages stored in the id.