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superego

Yeah I've always read Stirner's ego as close to Freud's id, but that doesn't seem to be how other people are using it. I think with neuroses/psychoses of any severity, the whole "do more exercise/make a daily habit" approach doesn't work. There's various reasons for this, one of these is that part of you is dissociated and doesn't agree with the act of "will", another is that you don't have full access to the energy sources in the id and thus can't channel them by will. Another might well be that the desire to replace your real self with your ideal self through self-disciplining practices is itself coming from the superego.

There's schizophrenics who would tell you something like, "I can't exercise my will because the alien mind-controllers are controlling my mind and body with telepathy". Likely it's actually some dissociated psychological part that's interfering, but that's actually what it feels like to them. Compulsions are similar, except the neurotic has less awareness of their lack of control. Panic attacks and real phobia-level fear can take over and neutralise "the will" in the same kind of way. A depressed person can't get out of it by will because their will is split and paralysed, with one part endlessly berating the other part.

How to break superego controls: well, first off, you'll have something closer to an autonomous will if all your parts (id, ego, superego, whatever other shit is in there) are conscious and are talking to each other, and you work with a purpose which is kinda fine with all of them. Second, historically people only get superegos in certain historical conditions, so changing these conditions (authoritarian parenting, authoritarian schooling, capitalist workplaces...) weakens the superego in people coming up. Third, superegos can be partially neutralised by anything that disinhibits the id and encourages spontaneity (anything from riots to weed), although that will tend to be temporary. Exercises which loosen the muscles might also reduce the power of the superego within the internal system. Fourth, an integrated superego should in principle be responsive to ethical commitments made by the ego: it doesn't mean you'll act on the commitments, but it means your superego will judge and punish you in line with them. So if you keep affirming something like Stirnerian ideas, the superego (if integrated) should take this on and hold you to these standards, which is to say, the standard of not living by moral standards but by desire (i.e. the superego should effectively "negate itself").

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