You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In this article, Carveth challenges Freud's equation of unconscious guilt with the unconscious need for punishment. He points out that “equating the need for punishment with guilt obscures the defensive function of self-torment (whatever additional functions it may perform) in the evasion of guilt” (p. 179). He sees self-punishment as a defense against guilt. Drawing on a Kleinian viewpoint, Carveth discusses how guilt is associated with the depressive position, concern for the object, and attempts at reparation, while self-punishment is associated with the paranoid-schizoid position and narcissistic concern for the self. He shows how a number of authors have approached this topic, coming near to the idea of— but never actually declaring the necessity of—unlinking unconscious guilt and unconscious self-punishment.
Carveth goes on to discuss some of the clinical issues raised by his thesis, including the importance of not just “soothing the patient's superego” (p. 182), but of getting beyond the self-punishment to the actual guilt that is defended against. This guilt may be related to real or imagined transgression, but it is always at root based on an actual unconscious wish to harm that must be accepted, promoting depressive anxiety, concern for the object, and reparation.