The invention of purgatory: a note on the historical pedigree of the superego.
Stoppard (1998) in his great play "The Invention of Love" has suggested that the love poem "Like everything else, like clocks and trousers and algebra . . had to be invented" (emphasis added). In this essay I argue that the concept of Purgatory was not always with us either but also had to be invented. If theology got the concept started, I suggest that eventually it may have found its way into psychology, even influencing psychoanalytic ideas about the origins of the Superego. If the concepts Heaven and Hell reflect primitive Superego absolutes, the concept of Purgatory seems like the primitive Superego modulating its own severity and becoming more mature in the process. This influence of a theological concept (Purgatory) on a psychoanalytic concept (Superego) is then outlined and explicated in some detail.
Mahon
Eugene
E
Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, USA.
D000328:Adult; D002410:Catholicism / Q000266:history*; D002648:Child; D005619:Freudian Theory; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D033303:Protestantism / Q000266:history*; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history*; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D013475:Superego