The hypothesis put forward in this text maintains that the love of the superego is indispensable in the construction of the psychic apparatus. To love and be loved: the fulfilment of wishes and the satisfaction it brings are sometimes spoiled by neurotic feelings of guilt. But if prohibitions are discredited – particularly in a context of narcissistic hypercathexis – the compulsive search for autoerotic satisfaction runs wild: how can we understand the reinforcement of the need for punishment, its totalitarian, uncompromising and alienating violence, if not as an essential condition for maintaining the love of the superego? Does love not remain anchored in the fear of disappointing the object, of not meeting its expectations by transgressing the fundamental principles that enable us to process our instinctual drive life and its excesses? The clinical material of an analysis leads to a distinction between rules and prohibitions and allows us to analyse the varying modalities of the superego's love, which is decisive in terms of our capacity to love.