This chapter explores Freud’s term ‘ego ideal’, separate from and predating the superego and with its first appearance as the ideal ego or self – closer to omnipotence than the growing sense of potency contained in the ego ideal. There follow case examples of young people for whom an ideal ego was essential in defending against humiliation, with emphasis on a primitive and mechanistic ideal self; a young child whose formation of an ego ideal was a huge developmental achievement; and final comments on fostering analytic ego ideals in our trainees.