The Still Small Voice : Psychoanalytic
Reflections on Guilt and Conscience, by Donald
L. Carveth, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2013
Whereas Freud
himself viewed conscience as one of the functions of the superego, in The
Still Small Voice: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Guilt and Conscience, the
author argues that superego and conscience are distinct mental functions
and that, therefore, a fourth mental structure, the conscience, needs to be
added to the psychoanalytic structural theory of the mind. He claims that while
both conscience and superego originate in the so-called pre-oedipal phase of
infant and child development they are comprised of contrasting and often
conflicting identifications. The primary object, still most often the mother,
is inevitably experienced as, on the one hand, nurturing and soothing and, on
the other, as frustrating and persecuting. Conscience is formed in
identification with the nurturer; the superego in identification with the
aggressor. There is a principle of reciprocity at work in the human psyche: for
love received one seeks to return love; for hate, hate (the talion law).(amazon)
