ABSTRACT
The superego contains the ideals, censuring forces, and approval. The child's readiness and willingness at a certain period of development to attribute omnipotence to the parents rather than to him is a phase of increased "educability" in the child. In both the earlier period of self-omnipotence and the later period of omnipotence projected to the parents, the main issue for the child is how to deal with his libidinal and aggressive drives. The ego ideal's qualities of powerfulness and moral "perfection" retain and reflect the omnipotent aspect of the individual's original infantile narcissism. The development of neutralized superego structure is dependent on the passage of the child's narcissism through the parents. The child's narcissism will be reintrojected in a relatively unmodified form, betraying its infantile character by its impatience and by an uncompromising attitude of self-righteous perfection. Development of the censuring part of the superego exhibits certain parallels with the aforementioned phases of ego ideal development.
