The patient chooses the language which is calculated to relieve the ego of anxiety caused by the superego. This may be either the language which reinforces repression, or that which weakens the severity of an archaic superego. Either of these purposes may be fulfilled, for instance, by avoiding the intimate language when dealing with the intimate physical relations with the mother. But this defence may also have a more positive value, as when a chosen language represents the deliberate adoption of a more reasonable ego-ideal, and thus provides the ego with a value-determined armoury against a superego determined by the id.