ABSTRACT

From 1913 Freud was interested in the phenomenon of guilt. Jones, in the paper republished here, subjected the concept to careful and sometimes sceptical scrutiny. He was not the only analyst to do so, but his was the most magisterial statement. Jones's paper would be a good start for a review of the steady march towards pluralism in psychoanalytic theory, as well as a current critical reappraisal of the super-ego concept. It typifies the unease about Freud's concept and in a way is a model of how the questions could be asked of Freud. Despite the uncertainties and questions, the development of the theory of the super-ego has contributed to understanding masochism, guilt, character formation, psychosis, and other psychoanalytic puzzles. It is unusual for the super-ego to be challenged or debated now, and it appears to be a permitted area where various views on a concept may co-exist, as if unnoticed.