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The term "[[superego]]" does not appear until quite late in [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]], [[being ]] first introduced in ''[[The Ego and the Id]]'' (1923).

It was in this [[work ]] that [[Freud]] introduced his so-called "[[structural model]]", in which the [[psyche]] is [[divided ]] into [[three ]] [[agencies]]: the [[ego]], the [[id]] and the [[superego]].

However, the [[concept ]] of a [[moral agency]] which judges and censures the [[ego]] can be found in [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]] long before he locates these functions in the [[superego]], such as in his concept of [[censorship]].

[[Lacan]]'s first [[discussion ]] of the [[superego]] comes in his articule on the [[family]].

In this work he distinguishes clearly between the [[superego]] and the '''[[ego-ideal]]''', [[terms ]] which [[Freud]] seems to use interchangeably in ''[[The Ego and the Id]]''.

He argues that the primary function of the [[superego]] is to [[repress]] [[desire|sexual desire]] for the [[mother]] in the [[resolution ]] of the [[Oedipus complex]].

Following [[Freud]], he argues that the [[superego]] results from [[Oedipal]] [[identification]] with the [[father]], but he also refers to [[Kleinian psychoanalysis|Melanie Klein]]'s [[thesis ]] on the [[maternal ]] origins of an archaic [[form ]] of the [[superego]].<ref>{{1938}} p. 59-60</ref>

When [[Lacan]] returns to the [[subject]] of the [[superego]] in his 1953-4 [[seminar]]; he locates it in the [[symbolic|symbolic order]], as opposed to the [[imaginary|imaginary order]] of the [[ego]]: the [[superego]] is essentially located within the [[symbolic|symbolic plane]] of [[speech]].<ref>{{S1}} p. 102</ref>

The [[superego]] has a close [[relationship ]] with the [[Law]], but this relationship is a paradoxical one.

On the one hand, the [[Law]] as such is a [[symbolic]] [[structure]] which regualtes [[subjectivity]] and in this [[sense ]] prevents disintegration.

On the other hand, the [[law]] of the [[superego]] has a "[[senseless]], blind [[character]], of pure imperativeness and simple tyranny.<ref>{{S1}} p. 102</ref>

<blockquote>Thus "the superego is at one and the same [[time ]] the law and its [[destruction]]."<ref>{{S1}} p. 102</ref></blockquote>

The [[superego]] arises from the misunderstanding of the [[law]], from the [[gap]]s in the [[symbolic]] [[chain]], and fills out those [[gap]]s with an [[imaginary]] [[substitute]] that distorts the [[law]].<ref>{{E}} p. 143</ref>

In 1962, [[Lacan]] argues that this is none other than the [[Kant]]ian [[categorical imperative]].

The [[superego]] is thus the expression of the [[superego|will-to-enjoy]] (''volonte de jouissance''), which is not the [[subject]]'s own will but the will of the [[Other]], who assumes the form of [[Sade]]'s "Supreme Being-in-[[Evil]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 773</ref>

The [[superego]] is an "[[obscene]], ferocious [[Figure]]"<ref>{{E}} p. 256</ref> which imposes "a senseless, destructive, purely oppressive, almost always anti-legel [[morality]]" on the [[neurotic]] [[subject]].<ref>{{S1}} p. 102</ref>