ego ideal

American  

noun

Psychoanalysis.

1. a more or less conscious ideal of personal excellence derived from a composite image of the characteristics of persons, initially those of the parents, with whom the individual identifies.

---

ego ideal British  

noun

1. psychoanal an internal ideal of personal perfection that represents what one wants to be rather than what one ought to be and is derived from one's early relationship with one's parents See also superego

---

Etymology

Origin of ego ideal

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

Are they self-centered, too, and do they need to shed their “ego ideal,” or have they progressed to their second mountain, or is this story just about David and Kathy?

From The New Yorker

If the work groups have an ideal that is not antagonistic to the ego ideal, the basic assumption groups have an ideal that utterly destroys the ego ideal and takes its place.

From Newsweek

He envisioned an even more dire situation in which employees despair of ever reaching their full potential — in psychological parlance, when they face a wide gap between their self-image and their ego ideal.

From New York Times

We have called it the 'ego ideal', and by way of functions we have ascribed to it self-observation, the moral conscience, the censorship of dreams, and the chief influence in repression.

From Project Gutenberg

It is even obvious, in many forms of love choice, that the object serves as a substitute for some unattained ego ideal of our own.

From Project Gutenberg