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Definition of "superego" []

  • In Freudian theory, the division of the unconscious that is formed through the internalization of moral standards of parents and society, and that censors and restrains the ego. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "superego" in a sentence
  • "The superego is the voice of moral outrage, of the whistle-blower and the tattle-tale, the first to kick you when you’re down and to insist you deserve your misfortune."
  • "In the language of psychoanalysis, sublimation reconciles the needs of the ego, or what I want for myself, with those of the superego, which is our sense of what the outside world requires of us."
  • "She wages war on The Voice — what Freud called the superego — a scolding presence that may try to shame or ridicule women into pursuing a cadaverous look through anorexia or bulimia."