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Reference is made to Freud's paper 'Some Character Types met with in Psycho-Analytic Work' (1915). Richard III in Shakespeare's play felt that his physical handicap put him above social and moral laws. His life was a sadomasochistic provocation of fate simultaneously enabling him to deny his own conscience and to satisfy a need for punishment. Freud saw the position of woman as a similarly castrated one, resulting in only a limited acceptance of the oedipal laws and immature superego development.
Freud's paper, written before his clarification of the structural concepts, is now further illustrated by two cases in which narcissistic injury arising from severe physical handicap resulted in markedly differing superego formation. The effect of the deformity on parental attitudes and on the patients' object relations and defensive manoeuvres is discussed. In the first, the narcissistic aggressive nature of the patient's oedipal strivings was coupled with a rebellious insistence on her right to satisfaction and was linked with the spiteful denial of her own conscience and the history of unconscious self-destructive trends. The appeal for love that was never received is apparent. The second type, unconsciously identified with Christ, epitomized self-sacrificing altruism, humble renunciation, and acceptance of suffering. She competed with her sadistic and impulse-ridden sisters by sacrificing herself for them financially, thereby making recompense for their sins of which she unconsciously accused herself and at the same time participating at one remove in their pleasures. She gained narcissistic satisfaction from her effective struggle for survival and assertive altruism.