The father of the horde and the superego: about one harbinger of the instance

Abstract

This article develops reflections that aims to evidence the prominence of the Totem and Taboo work in the theoretical body of psychoanalysis. In this sense, it uses the notion of superego, which we recognize as an example of this profitable “heuristic power” of Totem and Taboo to raise developments on culture, clinic and psychoanalytic theory. The superego consists of an important notion of the psychoanalytic theory even before its formulation as psychic agency; it is a conceptual element in constant elaboration work. Therefore, this paper accentuates the misconception aspect of this concept, because it consists of a notion fraught of paradoxes. Finally, it utilizes the work The Ego and Id while the other pole of this contract, because it is in this work that the superego is finally appointed and designated as psychic instance. It is also emphasized then that the paradoxical aspect of the superego can be referred to the father’s place in the Freudian myth of the primal horde.