Superego - Psychology Definition of the Week
Monday August 4, 2008
Definition: According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, the superego is the component of personality composed of our internalized ideals that we have acquired from our parents and from society. The superego works to suppress the urges of the id and tries to make the ego behave morally, rather than realistically.
Interested in psychoanalytic theory?
- The Conscious and Unconscious Mind
- The Id, Ego and Superego
- The Life, Work and Theories of Sigmund Freud
Image courtesy Piotr Bizior
Comments
The Superego is one of Mr. Freud’s inventions, part of a system that would explain certain behaviors, and the causes of those behaviors. He found something, he had no idea what that was, and made up some ideas that explain it.
You might say something like “but his theory works”; well, if you’re sick, you can go to some shaman in the mountains, no science there, but hey, it works!