The Loving and Persecuting Superego1

I BELIEVE THAT MODIFICATION OF THE SUPEREGO structure is one of the essential treatment requirements in the psychoneuroses, and that this modification plays a large part in the psychotherapy of borderline and psychotic cases as well, where re-structuring of the ego is primary. Usually this modification takes place in two directions: (1) a mellowing and taming of the harshness of the persecuting superego combined with more realistic standards; and (2) a growth and development of the loving superego in the direction of greater strength and protectiveness, especially in relation to the persecuting superego.

Since the early 1960's relatively few articles on the superego appear in the psychoanalytic literature. Aside from Fromm's (1947) seminal book Man for Himself, I have found only two papers in the literature specifically addressed to the concept of a loving or protective superego. The first is, The Loving and Beloved Super-ego, by Schafer (1960); the second is a monograph by Lederer (1964) entitled, Dragons, Delinquents and Destiny. Schafer's scholarly article concludes that Freud implicitly points to the concept of a loving superego although not at all in the organized way in which he had pursued the idea of a persecuting superego. Nevertheless, Freud (1923) did make some very specific and moving observations which point to a concept of a loving superego:

The fear of death in melancholia only admits of one explanation: that the ego gives itself up because it feels itself hated and persecuted by the super-ego, instead of loved. To the ego, therefore, living means the same as being loved—being loved by the super-ego; which here again appears as a representative of the id. The super-ego fulfills the same function of protecting and saving that was fulfilled in earlier days by the father and later by Providence and Destiny. But, when the ego finds itself in an excessive real danger which it believes