Internal Conflict

The term ‘superego’ (which should perhaps be replaced by ‘anti-ego’) is used to denote a set of habitual response tendencies that are antagonistic to the self, and cause the subject to behave as if he were two separate persons at war with each other. The superego develops in early life and may be ‘punitive’ or ‘humiliating’ or both. The former kind arises through learning to restrain the self from dangerously rebelling against overwhelming coercion, and the latter through intense striving to avoid parental scorn. The resultant ‘internal’ conflict resembles the external one between an actual child and a demanding parent; and the relative fortunes of the two antagonists provide a model for understanding the characteristics of many kinds of emotional and psychosomatic disorder. Superego behaviour is propagated from generation to generation; and perpetuates itself in the individual by preventing the responses that, by proving it unnecessary, would lead to its extinction. Self-punitive conditions are therefore highly resistant to treatment, which must be specially directed to the particular needs of each of the patient's two conflicting parts in turn. To be able to do this, psychotherapists themselves need to be freed from their own internal conflicts during training and later.