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Long before we understood the structure of the super-ego we had, as it were, caught a glimpse of its contours. The gradual unravelling of threads in our knowledge of the Oedipus complex, which was discovered at the outset of psycho-analytical research but whose full import could not immediately be grasped, led Freud logically to the discovery of this psychic institution. After clinical experience had established the existence and nature of the super-ego, it was possible to fit it in with his views on the primal epoch of the father-horde, the fateful slaying of the father, the organization of the brother-clan and, finally, totemistic culture, etc. His findings on these subjects developed into a history of the evolution of human society, culminating in the formation of the super-ego. The understanding of this has been further assisted by Freud's contribution to biological theory, namely, the theory of instinct. According to Freud's view, which has been fruitfully applied in many fields by his pupils, especially by Reik and Alexander, the instinctual energy employed by the super-ego in its punishment-tendencies (auto-aggression) is energy which was originally directed to the external world; but since it was inhibited in its external workings, it was forced to turn back upon the self.2 To Freud's conception of the formation of the super-ego, according to which it originates in the identification of the ego with the father (the individual's own past, authority), there was thus added the notion that the part of the ego thus formed operates with the energy of the destructive instinct, derived from the id. The excessive severity of the super-ego is so inflexible and so little amenable to influence precisely because it