The super-ego is, however, not merely a deposit left by the earliest object-choices of the id; it also represents an energetic reaction-formation against those choices. Its relation to the ego is not exhausted by the precept: “You ought to be such and such (like your father)’; it also comprises the prohibition: “You must not be such and such (like your father); that is, you may not do all that he does; many things are his prerogative.” This double aspect of the ego-ideal derives from the fact that the ego-ideal had the task of effecting the repression of the Oedipus complex, indeed, it is to
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