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superego (surmoi) The term 'superego' does not appear until quite late
in Freud's work, being first introduced in The Ego and the Id (Freud, 1923b). 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 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 article on the family
(Lacan, 1938). 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 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 Melanie Klein's thesis on the maternal origins of an
archaic form of the superego (Lacan, 1938: 59-60).
When Lacan returns to the subject of the superego in his 1953-4 seminar, he
locates it in the symbolic order, as opposed to the imaginary order of the ego:
'the superego is essentially located within the symbolic plane of speech' (Sl,
102). 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 regulates 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' (Sl, 102). Thus 'the superego is at one and
the same time the law and its destruction' (Sl, 102). The superego arises from
the misunderstanding of the law, from the gaps in the symbolic chain, and fills
attempt to avoid the ambiguity and equivocation of discourse, it is precisely
this ambiguity which psychoanalysis thrives on.
Suggestion has a close relation with TRANSFERENCE (E, 270). If transference
involves the analysand attributing knowledge to the analyst, suggestion refers
to a particular way of responding to this attribution. Lacan argues that the
analyst must realise that he only occupies the position of one who is presumed
(by the analysand) to know, without fooling himself that he really does possess
the knowledge attributed to him. In this way, the analyst is able to transform
the transference into 'an analysis of suggestion' (E, 271). Suggestion, on the
other hand, arises when the analyst assumes the position of one who really
does know.
Like Freud, Lacan sees hypnosis as the model of suggestion. In Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud shows how hypnotism makes
the object converge with the ego-ideal (Freud, 1921). To put this in Lacanian
terms, hypnotism involves the convergence of the object a and the I. Psycho-
analysis involves exactly the opposite, since 'the fundamental mainspring of
the analytic operation is the maintenance of the distance between I - identi-
fication - and the a' (S11, 273).
superego (surmoi) The term 'superego' does not appear until quite late
in Freud's work, being first introduced in The Ego and the Id (Freud, 1923b). 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 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 article on the family
(Lacan, 1938). 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 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 Melanie Klein's thesis on the maternal origins of an
archaic form of the superego (Lacan, 1938: 59-60).
When Lacan returns to the subject of the superego in his 1953-4 seminar, he
locates it in the symbolic order, as opposed to the imaginary order of the ego:
'the superego is essentially located within the symbolic plane of speech' (Sl,
102). 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 regulates 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' (Sl, 102). Thus 'the superego is at one and
the same time the law and its destruction' (Sl, 102). The superego arises from
the misunderstanding of the law, from the gaps in the symbolic chain, and fills
out those gaps with an imaginary substitute that distorts the law (see E, 143;
see Lacan's almost identical remarks on the censorship: 'Censorship is always
related to whatever, in discourse, is linked to the law in so far as it is not
understood' - S2, 127).
More specifically, in linguistic terms, 'the superego is an imperative' (Sl,
102). In 1962, Lacan argues that this is none other than the Kantian categorical
imperative. The specific imperative involved is the command 'Enjoy!'; the
superego is the Other insofar as the Other commands the subject to enjoy. The
superego is thus the expression of the will-to-enjoy (volontÈ 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' (Ec, 773). The superego is an
'obscene, ferocious Figure' (E, 256) which imposes 'a senseless, destructive,
purely oppressive, almost always anti-legal morality' on the neurotic subject
(Sl, 102). The superego is related to the voice, and thus to the invoking drive
and tO SADISM/MASOCHISM.
