Superego Formation, Adolescent Transformation, and the Adult Neurosis

Abstract

The superego is heir to the Oedipus complex but has a much larger developmental legacy which includes preoedipal precursors and the influence of latency and adolescence. The superego continues to change in function and content throughout life, and radical transformation in adolescence may result in developmental discontinuity as well as core developmental continuity. A case is discussed in which adolescence was overlooked in previous analysis and in which adolescent superego modification had a major impact on the patient's character and his adult neurosis. The developmental significance of adolescence experienced under conditions of social isolation and rejection with forebodings of the Holocaust was unrecognized in sanctioned silence and shared analytic denial. These repeated earlier experiences of silent submission and stifled protest, and the silent suffering of the patient and his family, were an integral part of his humiliating and emasculating adolescent experiences. The intimidated adolescent, threatened from within and without, identified with the aggressor as well as with the victim. Identification with the aggressor and glorified victor contributed to a final adolescent structuralization of a punitive, sadistic superego and a rigidly perfectionistic ego ideal. As an adult, he tended to passive masochistic compliance with diminished self-esteem and unconscious self-denigration. He was prone to shame and guilt, self-criticism, and hidden hypercritical attitudes toward others. The adolescent internalization of aggression, intense castration anxiety, and pervasive narcissistic mortification led to retreat from resolution of revived oedipal conflict and to concomitant detrimental superego alteration. These issues were of major importance for analytic understanding and therapeutic progress.

My Father, Myself

“…that she had turned me into an ineffective, unworthy analyst who was incapable of helping her rid herself of her tormenting thoughts. As in Nurit's first analysis, this was due to the fact that both she and I belonged to the same traumatized large group: the offspring of Holocaust survivors (Blum 1985;Volkan, Ast, and Greer 2002). My difficulty in dealing with the Nazi introject (expressed through Nurit's injunction that I exterminate the tiny ants-the Jewish people) was also due to my desire to avoid becoming the Nazi perpetrator and inflicting further shame and humiliation upon my patient (Oliner 1996).…”

“…I had first interpreted Nurit's enactment in the transference as her desire to make me feel how she had experienced herself as a child, criticized by her menacing parents. Only later on was I able to overcome my difficulty and relate to Nurit's aggressive aspect, pointing out to her 4 According to Blum's (1983) description of the so-called replacement-child syndrome, what is deposited by the parent in the new child's self-representations is not only the image of the lost child, but also the unconscious fantasy that this child will repair the parent's grief. that she had turned me into an ineffective, unworthy analyst who was incapable of helping her rid herself of her tormenting thoughts.…”

Onyargilarin Psikolojisi: Psikodinamik Bir Gozden Gecirme

“…Bu dönemin biyolojik ve psikolojik özellikleri nedeniyle bireyler, bireysel ve geniş grup kimliklerini tekrar tanımlama ve gözden geçirme sürecine girerler (Blum, 1985). Bu dönemde geniş grup kimliği bireysel çekirdek kimlik içinde kristalleşir.…”

In these pages… THE INTERTWINING OF EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL EVENTS IN THE CHANGING WORLD

“…Loewenberg (1995) and Rangell (2003) remind us that some aspects of external historical events induce anxiety. For example, Blum (1985) describes a Jewish patient who came to him for reanalysis and informs us that the patient's first analyst, who was also Jewish, failed to "hear" their large group's shared trauma at the hands of the Nazis in his patient's material. As a consequence, mutually sanctioned silence and denial pervaded the entire analytic experience, leaving unanalyzed residues of the Holocaust in the patient's symptoms.…”