A comprehensive survey of the concept of the superego, one of those very familiar and yet elusive and complicated psychoanalytic concepts, is much to be welcomed, especially one by such a well-respected authority as Bernard Barnett, training analyst and teacher at the British Psychoanalytical Society.

The first chapter introduces the main features of the system superego, clarified by examples from case vignettes, press reports and English literature. Here, as throughout the text, Barnett draws in the most illuminating manner on George Eliot's last novel, Daniel Deronda (Eliot 1876), invoking this novelist's stated aim ‘to widen the English vision a little … and let in a little conscience and refinement’ (p. 13). It is a novel particularly well suited to exemplifying Barnett's points, and his interweaving of its moments and personalities is one of the great strengths of ‘You Ought To!’