The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 23, 1954, No. 4: Philip Weissman. 'Ego and Super-Ego in Obsessional Character and Neurosis.'

Weissman differentiates between the operations of the pre-genital, or archaic, and the genital super-ego. The archaic super-ego is formed by the internalization of objects to whom aggressive energy adheres in unneutralized form. These internalizations are more transient than the introjections which form the genital super-ego, and they are undone not so much by modification as by projection. Less

differentiated from the external world and from the id they may be said to form an 'intro-ego' or 'undifferentiated ego-conscience' rather than a super-ego. The intro-ego threatens with loss of objects and loss of love rather than with annihilation, castration and loss of self-esteem, as does the mature super-ego.

The particular vicissitude in super-ego formation responsible for the obsessional neurosis is that the archaic internalized objects shift their position in relation to the more mature objects so that they operate alongside them. Retaining their cathexis they have priority in governing phallic and anal-sadistic drives. Weissman examines several classical obsessions to differentiate the influence of the introjects of each stage.

The appearance of obsessional symptoms in latency has been accounted for by the over-rigidity of a newly formed super-ego. While not denying that this plays a part, the author points to the failure in repression of the Oedipus complex as a prominent feature of the disorder. He considers the symptoms of obsessional neurosis, characterized by magic and pseudo-morality, to be the attempt of an immature super-ego to protect against the Oedipal onslaught, expressed in terms of an anal regression. When the regression has occurred after the establishment of a mature super-ego the outcome is not obsessional neurosis at all, nor its equivalent a compulsive character, but a true anal character as described by Freud. Symptoms are minimal, and the super-ego is occupied with problems of self-esteem and of real morality.

Obsessional symptoms occur