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)
