Otherness in interior identity: a reflection about the Freudian concepts of unconscious, superego, and id

Theoretical, psychoanalytical constructs referring to the unconscious, the superego, and id, enjoy an autonomy within the I. As such, this study contemplates the discussion of these foreign entities that inhabit the interior of the I, producing an effect of foreignness. In the first section, I will develop a reflection on the state of foreignness of the unconscious. I will begin with an analogy used by Freud, which addresses the thesis of universality of consciousness with the psychoanalytical thesis of the subconscience within the I. Affirmation of consciousness in the other may be used analogously for affirm the idea of another inhabiting our own being. I shall continue, seeking to understand how the process of unconscious repression produces the effect of foreignness. The idea of a moral censor present in the entity of the superego constitutes the theme of the second section. The superego follows the principle of otherness in its constitution and in its effects on the I. Finally, a reflection on the dimension of otherness in the Id seems urgent to me, as with this concept, Freud radicalized in the idea of the foreign as the origin of the subject.     

弗洛伊德心理学的神经生理学模式

将研究人类大脑的神经科学与研究人类心智的精神分析相结合的设想,源于精神分析心理学的创始人弗洛伊德,精神分析理论中一直隐含和贯穿着一种神经学或神经生理学的模式.弗洛伊德提出的这个神经学模式包括神经元和能量或数量两个元素,其工作原理是神经元的惯性原理.     

Narcissism and superego development

To elucidate the role of the superego in th maintenance of narcissistic equilibrium, we reviewed Freud's ideas about narcissism and the superego as well as the relevant theories of Kohut, Kernberg, and certain ego psychologists. These latter authors offer an alternative mode of understanding narcissism more consistent with Freud's structural theory, one in which signal affects and superego functioning play a central role in normal development and in the pathogenesis of narcissistic disturbances. Early steps in superego formation were then examined schematically to elucidate the interaction of environmental influences and emerging psychic structure. We suggested that the first step in a developmental line toward superego formation is based on the affective qualities experienced in the course of self-object differentiation. Subsequent steps examined were introject and ego-ideal formation; compliance with th object; compliance with the introject; identification with the introject and the ego ideal; and finally, with oedipal resolution, the integration of superego nuclei into a progressively structuralized autonomous superego system. This system achieves growing independence from the drives and from pressures from early introjects during the course of latency, and functions to maintain the demands of the conscience and the standards of the ego ideal; rewards or punishments result when these demands and standards are or are not met. The final stage briefly considered here was the revision, modification, and elaboration of moral codes and the ego ideal as part of the adolescent process. Narcissistic vulnerabilities at various stages were pointed out in an attempt to stress that a particular clinical picture in later phases of development or adulthood may derive from any of several development points of origin and from one or more etiological factors.     

The development of identification in Freudian theory

Once identification achieved its status as a specific psychoanalytic concept it followed a process of reconceptualization that emerged from the different clinical and theoretical contexts in which Freud approached and explained the phenomenon. In tracing the unfolding of the theory of identification throughout Freud's works, we have accounted for the following steps: First, in his correspondence with Fliess, Freud announced topics that would subsequently be theoretically processed. Second, in the first topography, identification was explored in the contexts of hysteria and dreams, and elaborated through reference to two psychic scenes with their respective modes of psychic functioning. Third, in the period of transition to the second topography identification was defined as a substitute for an object relationship and as a preliminary stage of object choice. Interlocked with the concept of narcissism, it produced a reconceptualization of the ego that led to the second topography. Finally, the tripartite model proposed in the second topography manifests the consolidation of the structuring function of identification, since the psychic structure is therein conceived of as resulting from the vicissitudes of object relationships.     

Manifestations of a punitive superego

The superego retaliatory actions can be understood as unresolved conflicts at the oedipal and oral levels of development. At the oedipal level, the law of talion rules the superego organization. At the oral stage, matricidal wishes stimulate a punitive mother introject which requires compensation. In both cases, however, the superego is the internalized maternal imago whose severity is as harsh as the mother's introjected mother.     

The psychoanalytic discourse. The Freudian subject of analysis

Discussing "rationalizing" interpretations of Freud's work and suggesting as an example Jürgen Habermas' reception of Freud the authors mark non-rationalized forms of speaking and silence as specifically Freudian discoveries. Objecting to Freud's recourse to Plato's allegory of the yet undivided "globe man" they draw upon Nietzsche's critique of the "true world" (beyond phenomena).     

The interpersonal and Freudian traditions: convergences and divergences

The traditional Freudian and interpersonal schools of psychoanalysis diverged during the psychoanalytic wars in New York in the 1940s. Each has developed from a different set of assumptions concerning the mind, especially the role of structure and the role of interaction. Recent developments in both schools in the last twenty years suggest a convergence and overlap in theory and technique. The relevant history of the divergence is examined and the work of three contemporary interpersonal writers explored in depth. That work is contrasted with contemporary developments in traditional Freudian psychoanalysis.     

The indivisibility of Freudian object relations and drive theories

The term "object relations theory" has little meaning unless placed in a context. Left unmodified, it applies to a variety of contradictory theories, many of which leave out or diminish other metapsychological points of view. This paper utilizes an account of an "ordinary" analysand's life and treatment as a context for the close examination of one session, also "ordinary," and undramatic, in order to demonstrate by example the usefulness of the psychoanalytic theory of drives in indivisible relationship with the psychoanalytic theory of object relations which, in turn, are related to all of the other metapsychological points of view.