Note 27 — VII

In his Psychoanalyse der Gesamtpersönlichkeit, 1927, Franz Alexander has, in connection with Aichhorn’s study of dissocial behaviour in children, discussed the two main types of pathogenic methods of training, that of excessive severity and of spoiling. The ‘unduly lenient and indulgent’ father fosters the development of an over-strict super-ego because, in face of the love which is showered on it, the child has no other way of disposing of its aggressiveness than to turn it inwards. In neglected children who grow up without any love the tension between ego and super-ego is lacking; their aggressions can be directed externally. Apart from any constitutional factor which may be present, therefore, one may say that a strict conscience arises from the co-operation of two factors in the environment: the deprivation of instinctual gratification which evokes the child’s aggressiveness, and the love it receives which turns this aggressiveness inwards, where it is taken over by the super-ego.