[Undated]: The Super-Ego. Cogitations

The patient is gay, debonair. What has he to be so cheerful about? He is happily married, has a little son to whom he is devoted; his wife, like himself, is wealthy and devoted to him; his home is charming and – what makes it better – he has done much of the carpentry himself; they have both decorated the rooms. Their friends are many and influential, also interesting and creative; a few are artists whose names are known. All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds – the quotation would be known to him. God, likewise, is in His Heaven, all's right with the world. What then is the matter?

But who said there is anything the matter? The patient certainly has not said so – quite the contrary. The summary of his circumstances that I have given is not only obtained from him but is, as I know, the theme on which he is about to embroider as he comes into the room, the theme and its variations to which I have listened for three years in every session he has attended. His analyst and his response to his analyst's treatment both fit in with the rest of his good fortune; it is a pleasure for him to be treated by so brilliant an analyst as myself, and naturally a pleasure for me to have such an agreeable and rewarding patient.

Occasionally there seems to be some discordant note, an interpretation that, after I have given it, seems not to have been quite happy. The patient is, however, able to pass it off with the kind of easy tact with which an accomplished host or hostess – perhaps the latter conveys the more accurate impression – might pass off the solecism of one of the less sophisticated guests. The surface of urbanity, temporarily almost ruffled, is restored, and we return to ‘the analysis’.

I said the patient has not mentioned that anything is the matter, but this is only partly true. At times he reports, somewhat whimsically, experiences, say at a party, which are less than agreeable. A woman, ill-tempered and known to be unpopular, has spoken to him impatiently,