THE ORIGIN OF MOTIVES AND VALUES IN THE FAMILY STRUCTURE

CHARACTERISTIC OF THE SUPER EGO
J.C. FLUGEL
In its classical form four main elements or sources of the super ego can be Convenient1y distinguished. As their relationships make it difficult to consider them in entire independence of one another, We shall first indicated, the general nature of, these four elements and then return in the following chapters to deal with them in greater detail

(1) In an earlier paper of great importance in the history of psycho analytic though Freud had modified his first and provisional antithesis between libido or the sexual impulse on the one hand (it will be remembered that Freud used this concept in an exceptionally wide sense) and the vaguely conceived ego impulses upon the other. The modification. Consisted in asserting that not all of the libido was connected with primitive bodily satisfactions or directed on to outer objects, but that some portion of it was, or in the process of development came to be, directed to the self (conceived as an enduring bodily and mental whole). Thus, he maintained, we love ourselves in the same way that we love outer objects, and the portion of the libido so directed to ourselves could be conveniently referred to as the narcissistic libido. In the course of further development t his portion of the libido itself undergoes differentiation. A part remain directed to ourselves as we really are, or at least as we conceive ourselves to be, the "real self." But this "real self' does not permanently satisfy our narcissism; as we develop, we become all too painfully. Aware of its defects and limitations, physical, mental, and moral; and we compensate by building up in imagination a sort of ideal self, which We would like to attain, This is the Ego – ideal and to this another portion of our narcissistic libido (the so called "secondary narcissism") in turn becomes directed. It is as though we refused to stay contented with our real self as a love object, once its deficiencies become apparent, and set out to construct a better and more worthy object, but one that still has some recognizable resemblance to the self. This process of direction of the, narcissistic libido to the ego ideal is the first source from which the superego is derived.

(2) The second source is from the process of introjections or incorporation into ones own minded of fie precepts and moral. Attitudes of others, particularly of one's parents or of other persons in loco parents, in one's youth. As a result of this process, the attitudes of impressive persons in, one's early environment (and to some extent throughout life) become a permanent part of one's own mental structure, become "second nature," as the popular expression has it. Through this process, too, moral standards and conventions become handed on from one generation to another, thus giving permanence and stability; to the codes and traditions of society.

(3) The Super ego is, as we have already noted, no direct copy of the moral standards of the community, particular, it is apt to be in many respect more severe. This greater severity if virtue of which the super ego often seems to behave aggressive and cruelly towards the ego, is traceable to various causes. But in particular it is due to recoil against the self of aggression aroused by frustrating object in the outer world. The wishes of the young child are frequently and inevitably frustrated¬ and frustrations of our desires, as all psychologists agree, tend naturally to arouse anger and aggression (the biological purpose of which is no doubt to overcome or remove the: obstacles to our desire). But in the young child aggression is very likely to be unsuccessful: first because he is too weak, and secondly because (as he learns a little later) the very persons against whom his aggression is aroused, his parents or others who are tending him, are also persons whom he loves and on whom he is dependent if he expresses his aggression too freely they punish him, and withdraw their help, love, and approval. Indeed it is man's unique and inevitable tragedy (due to his long period of helpless infancy) that he is compelled to hate those whom also hi most loves a condition which, is to some extent continued throughout life’ in his relations with his own super ego which is a centre to which both love and hate are directed and from which both love and hate emanate. But this will become clearer as we proceed. For the m moment we are. only concerned with the young child who cannot express his aggression towards its natural objects, the' frustrating parents. What is he to do with it? He cannot bang the door, kick the cat, behave rudely to some third person, or use any of the other numerous methods of discharge, which will be available to him in later life. But he always has himself as a possible object for his anger; and it was one of the remarkable discoveries of psycho analysis that, among the various lilies of displacement along which an impulse can be re directed. Turning inwards or turning against the self occupies an important place. This is what appears to happen in the present case. But the precise form in which the turning against the self here occurs (i.e., that it adds to the forces of the super ego) is probably determined to a large extent by the occurrence, at or about the same 'period, of the process of introjection to which we have just referred. The outside, forbidding, commanding persons (the parents) are introjected, i.e., are incorporated in the self in the form of the superego, and at the same time the child's aggression against these very persons is also turned against the self. Under these circumstances it seems as though the two processes tend to fuse, with the result that the inward recoiling aggression also becomes attached to the super ego. 17he superego, which represents the internalized, forbidding parents, is already endowed with the aggression naturally attributed to them as frustrating agents. It is now reinforced by the child's own aggression; and in this .way (among others) it becomes more stern, cruel, and aggressive than the actual parents

(4) The fourth source or element is more uncertain and controversial than the other three. The fierce aggressiveness with which the super ego can behave to the ego naturally suggests the co operation of another fundamental human, tendency the tendency to take pleasure in the exercise of mastery and in the infliction of pain for their own sake, over and above such domination and cruelty, as may be the inevitable accom¬paniments of aggression. The true nature of &.is sadomasochistic tendency, as it is generally called, presents a sinister puzzle to physiologist. In many of its manifestations it has an unmistakably sexual coloring. Indeed, sadism and masochism are among the best-recognized and most important sexual "perversions"; and Freud, in his conception of the libido as made up of a number of originally more or less independent "component instincts," gave both sadism and masochism a place among these instincts. It was clear, however, that in some respects they presented special prob¬lems and were different from most of the other component instincts: first in that they had no particular connection with any organ or part of the body, such as the mouth, the anus, the nose, the eye, the genitals, and secondly in the altogether peculiar way in which they combined the usually distinct and contradictory attitudes: to pleasure and pain. Later, when Freud divided the fundamental human drives into two classes, Eros and Thanatos, the life and death instincts respectively; he supposed that sadism and masochism arose from fusions of these two. McDougall had Likewise sought to explain their compound nature as fusions of sex and self assertion in the case of sadism, of sex and submission in the case of Masochism.

But, however they are constituted, there can be no doubt that, in the infliction of external punishment, sadism and perhaps to a Lesser extent, masochism play a part. It is pretty freely admitted that before. the introduction of "modern. "Enlightened," or "humanitarian" methods the profession of teacher (as to some extent all roles of authority) presented considerable opportunities for sadistic, punishment, while there is also good evidence that the pupil sometimes experienced a sexually tinged pleasure while being punished. But punishment is (or at least professes to be) itself a moral institution; and it is exercised by just such impressive authoritarian figures often indeed standing more or less officially in loco parents as those whose percepts and attitudes we interjects to form our super ego. It would not be altogether surprising then if the sadism of these authorities and the sadomasochistic relation in' which we stand to them in our external life were mirrored in the relation between the super ego and the ego in our internal life; and the element of cruelty so often actually found in the super ego seems to, support the view that the sadism of moral author ides is liable to be interjected along with other characteristic attitudes. As we shall see later, punishesment as a social or educational institution, also find an echo in the purely psychological sphere and Freud went so far as to speak of the “need for punishment,” some times experienced by the ego. The super ego indeed often takes over not only the admonishing prohibiting, and commanding functions, but also the punishing func¬tions of the external authority. To the sadism of the super ego there would then correspond masochism of the ego the roles being distributed be¬tween different aspects or (as Freud is fond of saying) "institutions" of the mind, instead of between different persons, as in the external world.
It is pretty clear that in many cases this approximates to a true description: the person concerned does seem to inflict suffering on himself and to enjoy both the process of infliction and the actual suffering. (Perhaps we can get a clearer idea of this situation if we imagine ourselves suffering from some pimple, boil, or other sore spot on our body and constantly touching this spot, although we know that it will hurt; in these. circumstances we sometimes seem to relish both the process of inflicting pain the touching, and the pain itself.) But difficulties of interpretation are apt to arise in those numerous cases when this fact of enjoyment is very hard to demonstrate. In so far as enjoyment in general, and sexually tinged enjoyment in particular, are lacking, the boundary between sadomasochism and simple aggression (our third factor) becomes obscured. With these Cases in mind, Freud was driven to distinguish a moral masochism” from the definitely sexual variety that he had in view when he classified masochism as a "Component instinct." Such "moral masochism" appears to have been short of its erotic elements, and indeed is perhaps only a manifestation of Thanatos, the death instinct or as others, suspicious of such somewhat mystic notions, might prefer to think, is just plain aggression turned against the self. It was in view of these difficulties, and of the fact that comparatively little progress has been made in our understanding of the sadomasochistic components of the super ego, that we were induced to say that this fourth element is more uncertain and controversial than the others. Nevertheless, the role of sadomasochism in external morality is often so plain, the correspondence between the external and the internal roles of punishment often so close, and the relation of sadomasochism to general aggression so far from clear, that it would be rash to deny to sadomasochistic tendencies a significant part in the nature and function of the super ego.

AGGRESSIVE ASPECTS OF THE SUPER EGO NEMESISM

Some Variety; and Example
In the last three chapters we have been dealing chiefly with the first two of the four factors, which we distinguished in the super ego, i.e., with the: creation, and influence of an ideal and with the introjection of external moral authorities. We must now turn to the, consideration of the third and fourth factors, i.e., those aspect of the super ego in which aggression predominates. Here as elsewhere, however, as the reader has been warned, it is hardly possible to maintain consistently our somewhat artificial division, and it will be found that in pursuit of our present aim we shall also be able to throw some further light upon other aspects of the super ego, including those connected with its origin and early development. At the same time, in turning to these aggressive elements, we shall become aware of certain correlative changes which the super ego appears to undergo when we look at it from t1iis new point of view. These changes may, be noted briefly at once, though their full nature and implications will, it is hoped, become clearer as we proceed. In the first place, of course, is the element of harshness or cruelty itself. Whereas in the elements we have been considering the super ego appeared to operate largely (though of course by no means exclusively) by holding before u I s a moral ideal, failure to attain which: arouses shame and guilt, the aspects with which we are now concerned rely on punishment and goading rather than on exhorta¬tion and appeal. Secondly, these new aspects are more negative and restrictive in character; they are concerned with prohibitions rather than with positive goals or ideals. In virtue of this they offer little inducement to the expansion of the ego or the development of its powers by way of sublimation or other wise. In the third place, the relations between the ego and these, aspects of the super ego are characterized by hate rather than by love; this part of the super ego corresponds to the child’s picture of the parent as a harsh 'forbidding, terrifying, and punishing being rather than as a loving, helping, and Protecting one.’ The parent, in virtue of these aspects, is no high perhaps unattainably high copy for imitation" (to use Baldwin's term), but rather a cruel, sadistic taskmaster and tyrant, who seems to take delight in placing taboos on many potentials sources of joy and satisfaction and in inflicting punishment at the slightest hint that these taboos may be infringed. Fourthly and lastly, these aspects of the super ego are more characteristically and completely unconscious in their operation. In place of art ideal of which we are at any rate in some degree aware, there arc restrictions and inhibitions, of the meaning and source of which we have often little, if any, understanding, and in the place of more or less conscious feelings of guilt for moral failures which we realize, punishment is often inflicted on us for crimes we do not recognize by a force of which we have little comprehension. Corresponding to this greater unconsciousness there is also a lesser capacity to undergo modification in the light of experience, so that this part of the super ego is liable to remain particularly archaic, un adaptable, and out of touch with, adult reality.
The differences that we have noted are of course only differences of degree and of general tendency, and it would be an easy matter to point to individual instances that seem to belie them; nevertheless, if we attempt to draw distinctions of a general kind between the aspects of the super ego with which we have been dealing and those which we are now about to consider, we believe that the distinctions will be of the kind indicated.
In the last three chapters we have of course already had occasion to deal pretty often with aggression. But this aggression had an external source in the behavior of the parents or other moral authorities, and it only became internalized and attached to the super ego as a result of the introjections. of these external authorities. The aggression with which we are now concerned has a different origin; it springs from the persons own anger and revolt against the frustrating parent figures. As we have already indicated, the arousal of such aggression is inevitable, inasmuch as parents are bound to frustrate their children in some degree, and it is likewise inevitable that a child's aggression cannot be fully and freely expressed, and this for two reasons: because the child is too weak to stand up to the opposition: of the parents, and because at the same time it loves them and is dependent on them. Unable therefore to direct this aggression against its natural object, the child must deal with it in some way: by repression, displacement, or by turning it against himself. in the very young child the capacities for both repression and displacement are probably less than at P later age; there is therefore a special likelihood of recourse being made to the re¬maining alternative. But throughout life there is a tendency for frustrated or inhibited aggression to recoil against the would be aggressor a fact well recognized by Marlowe when, in the parade of the Seven Deadly Sins before Dr. Faustus, he makes Wrath say: "I have run up and down the world with this case of rapiers, wounding myself when I had nobody to fight withal." This tendency would seem to be of such fundamental importance as to merit a special name by which it can conveniently be designated. we propose here to adopt Rosenzweig's suggestion and to use the term "nemesis" as an alternative and technical term for "aggression turned against the self." Such a term has the advantage of being easily compared and contrasted with the already familiar "narcissism," which designates the comparable process of love directed to the self.
The tendency, however, in spite of its importance, has, at any rate until quite recently, received but little notice from psychologists. Other than psychoanalysts, so that it is perhaps worthwhile to familiarize our¬ selves with it by means of a few simple examples. We may begin with some, which illustrate the common case (particularly important for us here) where a person's aggression against himself takes the form factually reinforcing the opposition or frustration due to a parent. Since in such cases the parents commands and the child's aggression manifest them selves in the same direction, it is a rather easy for the existence of the second factor to be overlooked, but when we study the child's behavior from the quantitative rather than the qualitative point of view we see that it exhibits a certain characteristic exaggeration or over intensification which dis-tinguishes it from the conduct that would result from a simple copying or introjections of the Parents' attitude; in other words, there is over obedience rather than a simple straightforward compliance.
The other day I was watching a mother feed her little girl of two. the child resisted the soup that was being offered her in a spoon and endeavored to push away the mother's hand with considerable show of force and displeasure. After a while, however, the mother still persisting, the child suddenly altered her behavior, seized the spoon herself and, without changing in any other way her combative expression, pushed it into her own mouth with 4ulte unnecessary violence and poured the con¬tents down ' her throat. There occurred indeed a quite unmistakable reversal in the direction of the child's aggression; from being directed against the mother, it was tamed against the child's own self, in a way that fulfilled the mothers wishes, but with a kind of savage energy that was quite foreign to the mother's attitude. Here there was no mere copying of the mother, no simple adoption of her role, but an addition to it of a new element derived from the child's own aggressiveness, suddenly directed against herself instead of against the outer world. In this little incident we see an example of the way in which the nemesis tic element of autogenously aggression complicates and distorts the picture that would result from mere adoption and introjections of the parents' moral attitude