Reading note: Freud’s “The ego and the id” — Chapter 3

The third chapter of this book is the introduction of the concept of “super-ego”. Freud wrote plenty of words to discuss “Oedipus Complex”, which is an idea from “Totem and Taboo”, seems that “super-ego” is somehow related to it.

This chapter is quite difficult to completely grasp what he said, I just attempt to interpret it:

In the beginning, he thinks that the “super-ego” related to the “object which was lost has been set up again inside the ego — that is, that an object-cathexis has been replaced by an identification”.[1] This sentence already consists of three concepts yet to be explained clearly: “lost”, “replace” and “identification”. Does he mean when somebody loses the attached or loved object, could be replaced by another object, and the whole process is named as identification?

It seems that it is right, Freud says,

“When the ego assumes the features of the object, it is forcing itself, so to speak, upon the id as a love-object and is trying to make good the id’s loss by saying: ‘Look, you can love me too-I am so like the object.’”[2]

However, the person could replace the love-object by himself. This transformation of libido which is named as narcissistic libido thus takes place obviously implies an abandonment of sexual aims, becomes a kind of sublimation. Freud considers this type of ego object-identifications as a pathological one. The reason is that a self-attached person is hard to transfer its attachment to the analyst, which is hard to break the circle. So, Freud thinks that they’re difficult to be cured psychoanalytically.

If we discuss the concept of “ego ideal”, it is necessary to state the concept of “identification”. Freud starts with the example of the identification of Father/Mother. He says,

“For a time these to relationships proceed side by side, until the boy’s sexual wishes in regard to his mother become more intense and his father is perceived as an obstacle to them…His identification with his father then takes on a hostile coloring and changes into a wish to get rid of his father in order to take his place with his mother.”[3]

This is the concept Oedipus Complex when the Father starts intervening the Mother-child unity to cut off their close bondage, then the child would turn hostile to his Father. It is quite an ambivalence for this triangular relationship, but without this intervention, the child could not learn how to manage the feeling of jealous in the triangular relationships, since the feeling of jealous could only be taken place in a triangular relationship.

Things would not last long, when the child leaves the oral state, as Freud explains,

“the demolition of the Oedipus complex, the boy’s object-cathexis of his mother must be given up. Its place may be filled by one of two things: either an identification with his mother or an intensification of his identification with his father.”[4]

Also, Freud sees some interesting observation of girl,

” Analysis very often shows that a little girl, after she has had to relinquish her father as a love-object, will bring her masculinity into prominence and identify herself with her father (that is, with the object which has been lost), instead of with her mother.”[5]

Then, what is super-ego? Freud thinks that the super-ego is the only residue of the Oedipus complex, but the imperative inside the mind that force you to act according to the norm. “You ought to be like this (like your father) …that is, you may not do all that he does; some things are his prerogative”[6] This derives from the fact that the super-ego retains the character of the father.

The concept of Oedipus complex spring the concept of the super-ego. It could be said that super-ego is the product of family history and biological drive. This is the juxtapose that mankind is both is a historical being and biological being.

At the end of this chapter, Freud tries to propose that man is also a collective being. The study of personal development is more than individual growth, but it also consists of an aspect that man develop into collective society. How does one enter the society from the protection of the family? It is should be one of the topic of phylogenetic development in psychoanalysis.

[1] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 23

[2] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 24

[3] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 27

[4] Ibid

[5] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 28

[6] Freud, The Ego and the Id, translated by Joan Riviere, page. 30