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The sexual ideal may enter into an interesting auxiliary relation to the
ego ideal. It may be used for substitutive satisfaction where
narcissistic satisfaction encounters real hindrances. In that case a
person will love in conformity with the narcissistic type of
object-choice, will love what he once was and no longer is, or else what
possesses the excellences which he never had at all (cf. (c)). The
formula parallel to the one there stated runs thus: what possesses the
excellence which the ego lacks for making it an ideal, is loved. This
expedient is of special importance for the neurotic, who, on account of
his excessive object-cathexes, is impoverished in his ego and is
incapable of fulfilling his ego ideal. He then seeks a way back to
narcissism from his prodigal expenditure of libido upon objects, by
choosing a sexual ideal after the narcissistic type which possesses the
excellences to which he cannot attain. This is the cure by love, which
he generally prefers to cure by analysis. Indeed, he cannot believe in
any other mechanism of cure; he usually brings expectations of this sort
with him to the treatment and directs them towards the person of the
physician. The patient's incapacity for love, resulting from his
extensive repressions, naturally stands in the way of a therapeutic plan
of this kind. An unintended result is often met with when, by means of
the treatment, he has been partially freed from his repressions: he
withdraws from further treatment in order to choose a love-object,
leaving his cure to be continued by a life with someone he loves. We
might be satisfied with this result, if it did not bring with it all the
dangers of a crippling dependence upon his helper in need.
The ego ideal opens up an important avenue for the understanding of
group psychology. In addition to its individual side, this ideal has a
social side; it is also the common ideal of a family, a class or a
nation. It binds not only a person's narcissistic libido, but also a
considerable amount of his homosexual libido, which is in this way
turned back into the ego. The want of satisfaction which arises from the
non-fulfilment of this ideal liberates homosexual libido, and this is
transformed into a sense of guilt (social anxiety). Originally this
sense of guilt was a fear of punishment by the parents, or, more
correctly, the fear of losing their love; later the parents are replaced
by an indefinite number of fellow-men. The frequent causation of
paranoia by an injury to the ego, by a frustration of satisfaction
within the sphere of the ego ideal, is thus made more intelligible, as
is the convergence of ideal-formation and sublimation in the ego ideal,
as well as the involution of sublimations and the possible
transformation of ideals in paraphrenic disorders.