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The conscience here discussed is, of course, the inner, unconscious conscience; the structure analytically known as the suger-ego. In a series of loosely-connected chapters covering many aspects of suger-ego development, formation and mechanisms, Bergler ranges over a rather wide area of human behavior. The common theme is that we know nothing, consciously, of this unknown, hidden, inner judge but that neurotic and “normal” behavior and thinking betrays its influence and importance.
It is fairly common knowledge by now that psychoanalysis has turned of late years from study of and preoccupation with the problems of the id to those of the ego and suger-ego. Bergler is therefore well in this trend. Drawing on a rich clinical experience as well as studies of literary figures and their works, he endeavors to demonstrate the evidence of the power and complex mechanisms by which the suger-ego makes itself felt. “The purpose of the book is to investigate the genesis and working ramifications of the normal conscience and also the technique of neurotic appeasement of the unconscious part of the conscience.” He does better in revealing the ramifications of neurotic appeasement than that of the “normal.
He insists a good deal on several of his own elaborations with which most of us who have followed his articles in professional journals are familiar: the triple-layer mechanism of neurotic symptom development: the defense against a defense at the bidding of the suger-ego. Also we read much about mechanisms of orality on which Dr. Bergler has more recently written a book and called it the “basic neurosis.”
The chapter on “Injustice Collectors” in this volume is a rather thorough and fascinating account of psychic masochism to which the triple “mechanism of orality” is basic. Much of the material in this volume has appeared previously in whole or in part in psychiatric and psychoanalytic journals. There are chapters on neurotic guilt including suicide, identification and the sense o