The Need for punishment (n.) is an impulse to self-punishment, always on the watch, that takes ingenious advantage of what chance offers — and betrays itself by the patient's striking composure after the 'accident'.
The Need for punishment (n.) must hide self-injury, in our civilization, behind an accident or an imitated illness; once it was the customary sign of mourning, or of piety and renunciation.
The Need for punishment (n.) is the name the analyst gives unconscious guilt so as to make sense to patients who refuse to believe they have any.
The Need for punishment (n.) is the ego turned masochistic under a sadistic super-ego — a piece of inner destructiveness used to form an erotic attachment to one's judge.
The Need for punishment (n.) is the worst enemy of therapy: satisfied by the suffering of the neurosis, it holds on to being ill.
The Need for punishment (n.) opposes every success, including the patient's own recovery.
The Need for punishment (n.) offers the ego up as a victim to Fate, or takes its pleasure in being mistreated by the super-ego.
The Need for punishment (n.) is a better name than "unconscious sense of guilt", which is psychologically incorrect and explains no more.