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SELMA FRAIBERG
is exactly what Rieff sees as the implications of Freudian psychology.
And if guilt is the manifestation only of pathology, the place of
guilt as a moral restraint can also be disputed.
In Freud's view the concept superego embraces both conscience
and ideal self and is conceived as a permanent organization within
the personality, an internalized moral system that may exert its
influence without coercion from external forces. Part of the super–
ego is unconscious. The superego is part of the ego; its values and
standar.ds of conduct are an integral part of the ego, and one can
speak of the two institutions as merged for all practical purposes.
It is only when conflict arises that a division between them can be
observed. We cannot speak of the "amoral" knowledge of the ego,
for the ego as properly defined is the possessor of moral knowledge
and the executor of moral functions. The superego makes no deci·
sions, "rational" or "irrational." Only the ego can make decisions,
for it is the ego that judges, reasons and acts.
The sense of guilt, Freud says, is an expression of the tension
between the demands of conscience and the actual attainments of
the ego. In
The Ego and The Id, Civilization and Its Discontents
and in other works, he makes it very clear that he regards guilt
feelings as normal and indispensable for the functioning of personal.
ity. The signal of guilt becomes a warning and usually an effective
deterrent to conduct that is incompatible with moral standar.ds. The
experience of guilt feelings and self-criticism for failure to measure
up to the ego-ideal provides the motive for modification of the
personality. Freud differentiates between a "normal, conscious sense
of guilt" and the guilt feelings encountered in neuroses, which arise
from unconscious forces and derive their energy and their malignant
character from an internal conflict that grows on secrecy and en·
gages the ego's defensive measures to keep it from entering con·
sciousness. In this way a neurotic patient may be burdened with
intolerable guilt
without
knowing the reason for it. In such
in·
stances we have a disease of conscience, and the sense of guilt which
normally serves as a guardian of internal moral laws
is
now given
over to the disease to persecute the personality for unknown crimes.
Psychoanalysis treats the diseases of the superego, but it does
not abolish the superego. The superego
is
an indestructible part of
the ego.
If
it were possible to abolish it the entire structure of per·
