Sunday, February 24, 2013

The anal superego

I've tried to establish the anal superego in many ways. I recently made another connection in Freud's remarks on the superego in animals and the importance of a leader in a wolf pack. The leader, as Freud outlines in Group Psychology, takes the place of the individual's ego ideal.


This general schematic picture of a psychical apparatus may be supposed to apply as well to the higher animals which resemble man mentally. A super-ego must be presumed to be present wherever, as is the case with man, there is a long period of dependence in childhood. A distinction between ego and id is an unavoidable assumption. Animal psychology has not yet taken in hand the interesting problem which is here presented (An Outline, p. 147)

I have cast a glance on his lines on leadership but I look forward to inquire whether he has found a way connecting the importance of a leader with the nature of a wolf-society
(Freud, S. (1922). Letter from Sigmund Freud to Ernest Jones, February 20, 1922. The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones 1908-1939, 461).

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