ABSTRACT

Dissecting the Superego: Moralities Under the Psychoanalytic Microscope offers a comprehensive overview of how the superego, the workings of our moral faculties, may be understood and clinically utilised in contemporary practice.

Drawing on the latest psychoanalytic thinking – as well as neurobiological, psychological and ethical perspectives- this book reinstates the superego as a central concept, and gives a clear guide to its importance in the modern world. In addition to the theoretical background of this construct, the contributors provide a clear guide to the importance of the superego in a range of pathological and everyday scenarios, and particularly in clinical settings.

With an emphasis on the wider social and cultural context, Dissecting the Superego: Moralities Under the Psychoanalytic Microscope will be of interest to trainee and qualified psychotherapists, social workers, youth offender and probation workers and ethicists.

chapter |17 pages

Introduction

The superego in 21st-century psychoanalysis

part I|57 pages

Theoretical and developmental considerations

chapter 1|11 pages

The good, the bad and the superego

From punishment to reparation 1

chapter 2|14 pages

A new theory of conscience

The petrified ego

chapter 4|16 pages

The neurobiological bases of human moralities

Industrial civilization’s misguided moral development

part II|78 pages

The role of the superego in different states of mind

chapter 5|16 pages

‘Sorry doesn’t make a dead man alive’

The superego behind depressive states of mind

chapter 7|16 pages

About the analyst and patient

The superego in borderline states of mind

chapter 9|13 pages

Fundamentalism and the superego

part III|50 pages

The superego in clinical contexts

chapter 11|15 pages

The analytic superego 1

chapter 12|18 pages

The superego’s role in ethical practice

Hindrance and help