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=Freudian Dictionary=
<blockquote>In the course of the individual development a part of the inhibiting forces in the outer world becomes internalized; a standard is created in the Ego which opposes the other faculties by observation, criticism, and prohibition. We call this new standard the Super-ego.<ref>{{M&M}} Part III, Section II</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>The Superego is the successor and representative of the parents (and educators) who superintended the actions of the individual in his first years of life; it perpetuates their functions almost without a change.<ref>{{M&M}} Part III, Section II</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>When I set out the relationship of Ego and Id I kept back an important part of the theory of the psychical apparatus. It is this: we were forced to assume that in the Ego itself a special agency has become differentiated, which we name the Super-Ego. This Super-Ego holds a special position between the Ego and the Id. It belongs to the Ego, shares its high psychological organization, but stands in an especially intimate connection with the Id. It is, actually, the precipitate of the Ego's first attachments to objects; the heir of the <Edipus complex, when that has been vacated. This Super-Ego can set itself against the Ego. It can treat it as an object, and often uses it very harshly. It is just as important for the Ego to live in concord with the Super-Ego as with the Id. Discords between Ego and Super-Ego have great significance for psychical life. You will have guessed by now that the Super-Ego is the vehicle for the phenomenon we call "conscience." It is very important for mental health that the Super-Ego should develop normally -that is, that it should become sufficiently depersonalized. It is precisely this that does not happen in the case of a neurotic, because his <Edipus complex does not undergo the right transformation. His Super-Ego deals with his Ego like a strict father with a child, and his idea of morality displays itself in primitive ways by making the Ego submit to punishment by the SuperEgo. Illness is employed as a means for this "self-punishment." The neurotic has to behave as though he were mastered by guilt, which the illness serves to punish, and so to relieve him.<ref>{{QLA}} Ch. 5</ref></blockquote>
<blockquote>The superego may bring fresh needs to the fore, but its chief function remains the ''limitation'' of satisfactions.<ref>{{OoPA}} Ch. 2</ref></blockquote>
{{Freudian Dictionary}}
=Below=
One of the three agencies described by [[Freud]]'s second [[topography]] of the [[psyche]], the others being the [[ego]] and the [[id]].
