The concept known as the superego was one of the most famous concepts coined by the all-important Austrian psychoanalyst and researcher Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis and perhaps one of the most important thinkers in the field of psychology in history. After carrying out extensive work with patients of different types and psychic conditions, Freud determined that the psychic apparatus or the psyche, the mind, could be divided or organized roughly into three spaces or particular structures that each fulfilled with a function and that they had specific characteristics.
At the base or in the most spontaneous or natural section of a person's psyche, we find the id, the structure that is related to desires, bodily sensations and the interest in fulfilling and satisfying those needs on a physical level. This level is unconscious and responds more than anything to stimuli. Then the self continues, the level that implies full consciousness and that is the one in which the person is most of his life consciously. Finally, the superego is the highest instance since it is the one that imposes morality or control over the other two, especially over the id with regard to desires and fantasies. It is important to point out that the self is perhaps the instance of equilibrium between one and the other since it supposes a combination of elements from both parts.
The superego is what makes a person not behave socially like an animal or a beast. The superego is the one that imposes socially approved behaviors, the one that contributes to generating rational sensations such as modesty, affection, control, and moderation. It is then linked more than with desire with the will, with the ability of a person to control their impulses and conform to socially accepted patterns of behavior. It is also the instance in which the rules and norms that govern social life appear. Although the superego has some contact with consciousness since they are all rational and not impulsive actions, an important part of a person's superego is unconscious and causes it to act in a certain way based on the way in which it has been raised, to starting from different traumatic situations that the individual has experienced and that the individual cannot easily recognize by himself.
