Vanier, Alain <br/><br/>
Beyond the Law: The Super-Ego 

 -  2013.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 93 
<br/><br/> In this interview, the psychoanalyst Alain Vanier discusses the metapsychological stakes of the concept of superego in the treatment of children and teenagers. In doing so, he explains the conditions in which Freud designed the concept and the way in which it was developed by M. Klein and J. Lacan. Far from being a legislating authority indexed to the law, the superego is composed of paradoxical commands—even fierce ones—which summon the subject’s jouissance. Beyond what is forbidden, these internalized injunctions force the subject to desire the impossible in the name of the ideal. It can be understood clinically in terms of the “big voice” and the scrutinizing gaze children and teenagers really come for—whether they be broken, prevented from learning and/or succeeding, or committing delinquent acts.