ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the modern Freudian and post-Freudian theoretical exploration of the superego, the ego ideal, and so-called “unconscious guilt”. It discusses the more traditional and more familiar ideas such as conscience, conscious guilt, and remorse and their relationship to psychoanalytic theory. The system is an umbrella term for a number of closely related concepts: superego, ego ideal, the ego, the self, the conscience, the sense of guilt, the wish for punishment and remorse. A person’s conscience is described as an “inner voice” and, it is close to conscious awareness and human consciousness in general. A very close ally of the sense of guilt and remorse, is the need for self-punishment, although it is helpful in comparing normality and pathology to consider this concept separately.
