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The theory of the genesis of the superego through identification is a cornerstone of the psychoanalytic understanding of personality. Internalization of moral demands is the fount of both normal development and neurotic distress since both neurosis and growth presuppose conflict between impulses and internalized standards. Psychoanalytic theory asserts that the superego is a precipitate of the oedipus-castration complex. The purpose of this essay is to show that identification and superego formation are not, in fact, primarily a by-product of the oedipus complex; to offer an alternative explanation derived from a theory of the origin of the ego ideal that Freud discarded; and in the process to examine the place of psychosexual development in the formation of character.
The article will proceed as follows. First, it will explore the psychoanalytic theory of identification and moral internalization and will argue that Freud proposed two causal models for superego formation. The first suggests that the child develops a conscience through identification in order to maintain a sense of his own value and power in the face of his loss of an illusory infantile narcissism. This theory was abandoned in favor of the second view, that the superego is heir to the oedipus complex. The boy, in this view, forms a superego because of fear of castration; the reasons for the girl's identification and development of a superego are less clear.
The next section of the article will propose that this second theory of identification and the formation of the superego is inadequate. In particular, it will argue that the theory confuses gender identification with moral internalization, and that the core of a process such as