Affective neuropsychoanalysis can make important contributions to this rethinking of the superego. This new conceptualization provides useful tools for addressing the actual functioning of the conscience in clinical psychoanalysis. In this article, the superego is reconceptualized as a psychic regulation system for self-evaluation, comprising the capacity for empathy, the proneness to experience self-conscious emotions, such as shame, pride, and guilt, and the capacity for moral reasoning. With the transition from a one-person psychology of instinctual needs to a two-person psychology of relational needs, the metapsychological focus tends to shift from instinct theory to emotion motivation and systems theory, and, accordingly, familiar concepts have to be rethought. The limitations of both Freud's original conceptualization and the present model are discussed accordingly in an interdisciplinary framework.
Acquisition of fire is discussed as a form of sublimation which might have helped Prehistoric man to maximize the utility of limited evolutionary biological resources, potentially contributing to the rate and extent of bodily evolution. The proposed model is built on knowledge from evolutionary and neural sciences as well as anthropology, and it particularly focuses on the evolutionary significance of the acquisition of fire by hominids in the Pleistocene period in the light of up-to-date archaeological findings. The present paper proposes an alternative model aiming to explain gradual development of superego in the primitive man. However, Freud theorized superego formation in the primal horde as if it is an instant, all-or-none achievement. This view suggests that although different attachment styles contribute to how people perceive their social/physical environments and master coping skills adaptively (Holmes, 2011), these did not compromise immediate survival fitness of growing offspring in the critical developmental period given that human evolution favored diversity in this domain.įreud proposed that the processes which occurred in the primal horde are essential for understanding superego formation and therefore, the successful dissolution of the Oedipus complex. Considering this point from a genetic perspective (Dawkins, 1976), evolution would not favor diversity in attachment styles in nonhuman animals, it is possible to speculate that the primal horde scenario might have occurred before humans mastered bipedal locomotion, when human behavior was more biologically determined. Therefore, once the mother-infant affective bond is formed, the females in the primal horde, as well as in nonhuman animals, must be hardwired to provide a secure attachment with their offspring so that offspring can master important survival skills which would directly influence the extent of how much of parents' genes will be available in the genetic pool in subsequent generations.